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Detail of contribution

Auteur: Brigitta KEIJ

Co-Auteur(s): René KAGER, Utrecht University, Netherlands

Titre:
Early acquisition of word stress: a cross-linguistic infant study.


Abstract/Résumé: In this paper the acquisition of metrical structure is discussed. Metrical structure is defined by the position of syllables in words. This structure is often delimitative, which means stress usually falls near the edges of a word. In initial stress languages a stressed syllable marks the onset of a word, and in final stress languages a stressed syllable marks the offset of a word. According to the Metrical Segmentation Hypothesis, metrical structure can be used to segment words from the speech stream. However, evidence for this hypothesis comes mainly from initial stress languages. Therefore, it is unknown whether this hypothesis is universal or whether learners of final stress languages use different cues. An acquisition perspective as well as a cross-linguistic perspective are adopted to answer these questions. Infants learning metrically opposed languages, namely infants learning Dutch (initial stress) and infants learning Turkish (final stress) are tested at the age of 4, 6 and 8 months. Instead of using the traditional head turn preference procedure, an innovative preferential listening paradigm using eye-tracking is used to first test the emergence of rhythmic preferences. The hypothesis is that Dutch- and Turkish-learning infants fail to show a rhythmic preference at 4 months of age, but that they have developed a language-specific rhythmic preference at 6 months of age, based on a distributional analysis of the input. Thus far, 85 Dutch-learning infants and 40 Turkish-learning infants aged 4, 6 and 8 months have been tested and the results for the Dutch-learning infants show that they do not present a rhythmic preference at 4 months of age, but that they do show a language-specific rhythmic preference at 6 months of age. However, more Turkish-learning infants are tested to interpret these results in a cross-linguistic perspective.