We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Prosodic structure and syntactic acquisition: the case of the head–direction parameter.
- Authors
Christophe, Anne; Nespor, Marina; Teresa Guasti, Maria; Van Ooyen, Brit
- Abstract
We propose that infants may learn about the relative order of heads and complements in their language before they know many words, on the basis of prosodic information (relative prominence within phonological phrases). We present experimental evidence that 6–12–week–old infants can discriminate two languages that differ in their head direction and its prosodic correlate, but have otherwise similar phonological properties (i.e. French and Turkish). This result supports the hypothesis that infants may use this kind of prosodic information to bootstrap their acquisition of word order.
- Subjects
HUMAN information processing in children; LANGUAGE awareness in children; WORD order (Grammar); FRENCH language; TURKISH language
- Publication
Developmental Science, 2003, Vol 6, Issue 2, p211
- ISSN
1363-755X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/1467-7687.00273