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Chapter 2. Early perception of phrasal prosody and its role in syntactic and lexical acquisition

  • Alex de Carvalho , Isabelle Dautriche , Séverine Millotte and Anne Christophe

Abstract

This chapter will review empirical findings on the perception of phrasal prosody in very young infants, and how it develops in first language acquisition. The ability to process phrasal prosody impacts learning of important aspects of language, specifically word segmentation and syntactic parsing. We will see that infants are able to perceive crucial aspects of phrasal prosody before the end of their first year of life, and that a few months later they are able to exploit the prosodic structure of an utterance to constrain its syntactic analysis, and therefore, to infer the meaning of unknown words.

Abstract

This chapter will review empirical findings on the perception of phrasal prosody in very young infants, and how it develops in first language acquisition. The ability to process phrasal prosody impacts learning of important aspects of language, specifically word segmentation and syntactic parsing. We will see that infants are able to perceive crucial aspects of phrasal prosody before the end of their first year of life, and that a few months later they are able to exploit the prosodic structure of an utterance to constrain its syntactic analysis, and therefore, to infer the meaning of unknown words.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  4. Part 1. Early sensitivity to prosody
  5. Chapter 2. Early perception of phrasal prosody and its role in syntactic and lexical acquisition 17
  6. Chapter 3. Early sensitivity and acquisition of prosodic patterns at the lexical level 37
  7. Chapter 4. The role of prosody in early word learning 59
  8. Chapter 5. The role of prosody in early speech segmentation and word-referent mapping 79
  9. Part 2. Learning to produce prosody
  10. Chapter 6. Set in time 103
  11. Chapter 7. Speech rhythm in development 125
  12. Chapter 8. Early development of intonation 145
  13. Chapter 9. Prosodic phonology in acquisition 165
  14. Chapter 10. The development of prosodic structure 185
  15. Chapter 11. Understanding the development of prosodic words 207
  16. Part 3. Moving to meaning: Prosody and pragmatic development
  17. Chapter 12. Early development of the prosody-meaning interface 227
  18. Chapter 13. Gradual development of focus prosody and affect prosody comprehension 247
  19. Chapter 14. Children’s development of internal state prosody 271
  20. Chapter 15. Get the focus right across languages 295
  21. Part 4. Prosody in bilingualism and in specific populations
  22. Chapter 16. Bilingual children’s prosodic development 317
  23. Chapter 17. Prosodic development in atypical populations 343
  24. Index 363
The Development of Prosody in First Language Acquisition
This chapter is in the book The Development of Prosody in First Language Acquisition
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.23.02car

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  4. Part 1. Early sensitivity to prosody
  5. Chapter 2. Early perception of phrasal prosody and its role in syntactic and lexical acquisition 17
  6. Chapter 3. Early sensitivity and acquisition of prosodic patterns at the lexical level 37
  7. Chapter 4. The role of prosody in early word learning 59
  8. Chapter 5. The role of prosody in early speech segmentation and word-referent mapping 79
  9. Part 2. Learning to produce prosody
  10. Chapter 6. Set in time 103
  11. Chapter 7. Speech rhythm in development 125
  12. Chapter 8. Early development of intonation 145
  13. Chapter 9. Prosodic phonology in acquisition 165
  14. Chapter 10. The development of prosodic structure 185
  15. Chapter 11. Understanding the development of prosodic words 207
  16. Part 3. Moving to meaning: Prosody and pragmatic development
  17. Chapter 12. Early development of the prosody-meaning interface 227
  18. Chapter 13. Gradual development of focus prosody and affect prosody comprehension 247
  19. Chapter 14. Children’s development of internal state prosody 271
  20. Chapter 15. Get the focus right across languages 295
  21. Part 4. Prosody in bilingualism and in specific populations
  22. Chapter 16. Bilingual children’s prosodic development 317
  23. Chapter 17. Prosodic development in atypical populations 343
  24. Index 363
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