Cover not available
Part of
The Development of Prosody in First Language Acquisition
Edited by Pilar Prieto and Núria Esteve-Gibert
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 23] 2018
► pp. 145–164

Chapter 8
Early development of intonation

Perception and production

| Universidade de Lisboa
| Universidade de Lisboa

This chapter focuses on early development of intonation. Together with a precocious sensitivity to prosody documented in the literature, recent research has shown that infants’ early perception of pitch-based categories is already language-specific by 4–5 months, and that their discrimination abilities differ not only according to ambient language but also as a function of pitch properties (e.g., pitch direction, or pitch alignment). On the production side, and focusing on studies within the Autosegmental-Metrical framework, findings suggest that key landmarks in intonational development precede and constrain the acquisition of other aspects of grammar (e.g., word and phrase size, and combinatorial speech). Both from a perception and production point of view, language specific effects emerge very early on in development, underlying cross-linguistic differences.

Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Early perception of intonation
    • Perception of native intonation
    • Perception of Non-native Intonation
  • Emerging intonation in production
    • Acquiring the phonological inventory of tonal events
    • Acquiring the phonetics of intonation
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 24 May 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.23.08fro
References
Astruc, L., Payne, E., Post, B., Vanrell, M. M., & Prieto, P.
(2013) Tonal targets in early child English, Spanish and Catalan. Language and Speech, 56(2), 229–253. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Benavides-Varela, S., Hochmann, J. R., Macagno, F., Nespor, M., & Mehler, J.
(2012) Newborn’s brain activity signals the origin of word memories. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(44), 17908–17913. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Best, C. T., Levitt, A., & McRoberts, G. W.
(1991) Examination of language-specific influences in infants’ discrimination of prosodic categories. Proceedings of the XIIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences 4 – Aix-en Provence, 162–165.
Bruce, G.
(2007) Components of a prosodic typology of Swedish intonation. In T. Riad, & C. Gussenhoven (Eds.), Tones and tunes: Typological studies in word and sentence prosody (Vol. 1, pp.114–145). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Butler, J., Vigário, M., & Frota, S.
(2016) Infants’ perception of the intonation of broad and narrow focus. Language Learning and Development, 12(1), 1–13. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chen, A.
(2011) Tuning information packaging: Intonational realization of topic and focus in child Dutch. Journal of Child Language, 38, 1055–1083. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chen, A., & Fikkert, P.
(2007) Intonation of early two-word utterances in Dutch. Proceedings of the XVIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences – Saarbrücken, 315–320.
Christophe, A., Dupoux, E., Bertoncini, J., & Mehler, J.
(1994) Do infants perceive word boundaries? An empirical study of the bootstrapping of lexical acquisition. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 95, 1570–1580. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
D’Imperio
(2002) Italian intonation: An overview and some questions. Probus, 14(1), 37–69.Google Scholar
DePaolis, R. A., Vihman, M. M., & Kunnari, S.
(2008) Prosody in production at the onset of word use: A cross-linguistic study. Journal of Phonetics, 36, 406–422. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Elordieta, G., & Hualde, J. I.
(2014) Intonation in Basque. In S.-A. Jun (Ed.), Prosodic typology II: The phonology of intonation and phrasing (pp.405–463). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Esteve-Gibert, N., & Prieto, P.
(2013) Prosody signals the emergence of intentional communication in the first year of life: Evidence from Catalan-babbling infants. Journal of Child Language, 40(5), 919–944. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Filipe, M., Branco, P., Frota, S., Castro, L., & Vicente, S.
(2014) Atypical prosody in Asperger syndrome: Perceptual and acoustic measurements. Journal of Autism and Development Disorders, 44(8), 1972–1981. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frota, S.
(2014) The intonational phonology of European Portuguese. In S.-A. Jun (Ed.), Prosodic typology II: The phonology of intonation and phrasing (pp.6–42). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frota, S., Cruz, M., Matos, N., & Vigário, M.
(2016) Early prosodic development: Emerging intonation and phrasing in European Portuguese. In M. E. Armstrong, N. Henriksen, & M. M. Vanrell (Eds.), Intonational grammar in Ibero-Romance: Approaches across linguistic subfields (pp.277–294). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Frota, S., & Prieto, P.
(2015a) Intonation in Romance. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2015b) Intonation in Romance: Systemic similarities and differences. In S. Frota & P. Prieto (Eds.), Intonation in Romance (pp.392–418). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frota, S., & Vigário, M.
(2008) The intonation of one-word and first two-word utterances in European Portuguese. Paper presented at the Third Conference on Tone and Intonation (TIE 3), Lisbon, Portugal.Google Scholar
(1995) The intonation of one European Portuguese infant: A first approach. In I. Hub Faria, & M. João Freitas (Eds.), Studies on the acquisition of Portuguese (pp.17–34). Lisboa: APL/Colibri.Google Scholar
Frota, S., Butler, J., & Vigário, M.
(2014) Infants’ perception of intonation: Is it a statement or a question? Infancy, 19(2), 194–213. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frota, S., Butler, J., Lu, S., & Vigário, M.
(2016) Infants’ perception of native and non-native pitch contrasts. Proceedings of the Speech Prosody – Boston, 692–696. DOI logo
Geffen, S., & Mintz, T.
(2015) Can you believe it? 12-month-olds use word order to distinguish between declaratives and polar interrogatives. Language Learning and Development, 11(3), 270–284. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2011) Seven-month-olds discrimination of statements and questions. Proceedings of the 36th Boston University Conference on Language Development, Supplement. Retrieved from [URL].
Gussenhoven, C.
(2007) The phonology of intonation. In P. de Lacy (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of phonology (pp.253–280). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hallé, P., de Boysson-Bardies, B., & Vihman, M. M.
(1991) Beginnings of prosodic organization: Intonation and duration patterns of disyllables produced by Japanese and French infants. Language and Speech, 34, 299–318.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Höhle, B.
(2009) Bootstrapping mechanisms in first language acquisition. Linguistics, 47(2), 359–382. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hualde, J. I., & Prieto, P.
(2015) Intonational variation in Spanish: European and American varieties. In S. Frota, & P. Prieto (Eds.), Intonation in Romance (pp.350–391). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jun, S-A.
(Ed.) (2014a) Prosodic typology II: The phonology of intonation and phrasing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2014b) Prosodic typology: By prominence type, word prosody, and macro-rhythm. In S-A. Jun (Ed.), Prosodic typology II. The phonology of intonation and phrasing (pp.520–540). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jusczyk, P. W.
(1997) The discovery of spoken language. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Koegel, L. K., Koegel, R. L., Green-Hopkins, I., & Barnes, C. C.
(2010) Brief report: Question-asking and collateral language acquisition in children with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 40(4), 509–515. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ladd, D. R.
(2008) Intonational phonology (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lleó, C.
(2016) A preliminary study of wh-questions in German and Spanish child language. In M. E. Armstrong, N. Henriksen & M. M. Vanrell (Eds.), Intonational grammar in Ibero-Romance: Approaches across linguistic subfields (pp.325–350). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Lleó, C., & Rakow, M.
(2011) Intonation targets of yes-no questions by Spanish and German monolingual and bilingual 2;0- and 3;0-year-olds. In T. Kupisch, & E. Rinke (Eds.), The development of grammar: Language acquisition and diachronic change (pp.213–234). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lleó, C., Rakow, M., & Kehoe, M.
(2004) Acquisition of language-specific pitch accent by Spanish and German monolingual and bilingual children. In T. L. Face (Ed.), Laboratory approaches to Spanish phonology (pp.3–27). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Mattock, K., & Burnham, D.
(2006) Chinese and English infants’ tone perception: Evidence for perceptual reorganization. Infancy, 10(3), 241–265. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mattock, K., Molnar, M., Polka, L., & Burnham, D.
(2008) The developmental course of lexical tone perception in the first year of life. Cognition, 106(3), 1367–1381. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nazzi, T., Bertoncini, J., & Mehler, J.
(1998) Language discrimination by newborns: Toward an understanding of the role of rhythm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24(3), 756–766.Google Scholar
Nazzi, T., Floccia, C., & Bertoncini, J.
(1998) Discrimination of pitch contours by neonates. Infant Behavior & Development, 21(4), 779–784. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Papoušek, M., Bornstein, M. H., Nuzzo, C., Papoušek, H., & Symmes, D.
(1990) Infant responses to prototypical melodic contours in parental speech. Infant Behavior and Development, 13, 539–545. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Prieto, P.
(2014) The intonational phonology of Catalan. In S-A. Jun (ed.), Prosodic typology II: The phonology of intonation and phrasing (pp.43–80). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Prieto, P., & Vanrell, M. M.
(2007) Early intonational development in Catalan. Proceedings of the XVIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences – Saarbrücken, 309–314.
Prieto, P., Estrella, A., Thorson, J., & Vanrell, M. M.
(2012) Is prosodic development correlated with grammatical development? Evidence from Catalan, English, and Spanish. Journal of Child Language, 39(2), 221–257. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Romøren, A. S. H., & Chen, A.
(2015) The acquisition of prosodic focus marking in Central Swedish: Sorting out lexical and post-lexical tones. Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences – Glasgow, 0268.
Sansavini, A., Bertoncini, J., & Giovanelli, G.
(1997) Newborns discriminate the rhythm of multisyllabic stressed words. Developmental Psychology, 33(1), 3–11. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sato, Y., Sogabe, Y., & Mazuka, R.
(2009) Development of hemispheric specialization for lexical pitch-accent in Japanese infants. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22(11), 2503–2513. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Savino, M
(2012) The intonation of polar questions in Italian: Where is the rise? Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 42(1), 23–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Seidl, A
(2007) Infants’ use and weighting of prosodic cues in clause segmentation. Journal of Memory and Language, 57, 24–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shi, R.
(2010) Contextual variability and infants’ perception of tonal categories. Chinese Journal of Phonetics, 2, 1–9.Google Scholar
Shi, R., Werker, J. F., & Morgan, J. L.
(1999) Newborn infants’ sensitivity to perceptual cues to lexical and grammatical words. Cognition, 72(2), B11–B21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shukla, M., White, K. S., & Aslin, R. N.
(2011) Prosody guides the rapid mapping of auditory word forms onto visual objects in 6-mo-old infants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(15), 6038–6043. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Snow, D
(2006) Regression and reorganisation of intonation between 6 and 23 months. Child Development, 77, 281–296. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Snow, D.
(2002) Intonation in the monosyllabic utterances of 1-year-olds. Infant Behavior and Development, 24, 393–407. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1994) Phrase-final syllable lengthening and intonation in early child speech. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 37, 831–840. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Snow, D., & Balog, H. L.
(2002) Do children produce the melody before the words? A review of developmental intonation research. Lingua, 112, 1025–1058. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Soderstrom, M., Ko, E., & Nevzorova, U.
(2011) It’s a question? Infants attend differently to yes/no questions and declaratives. Infant Behavior and Development, 34, 107–110. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sundara, M., Molnar, M., & Frota, S.
(2015) The perception of boundary tones in infancy. Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences – Glasgow, 0361.
Thorson, J., Borras-Comes, J., Crespo-Sendra, V., Vanrell, M. M., & Prieto, P.
(2014) The acquisition of melodic form and meaning in yes-no interrogatives by Catalan and Spanish speaking children. Probus, 26(1), 59–82.Google Scholar
Trehub, S. E., Bull, D., & Thorpe, L.
(1984) Infants’ perception of melodies: The role of melodic contour. Child Development, 55, 821–830.Google Scholar
Yeung, H. H., Chen, K. H., & Werker, J. F.
(2013) When does native language input affect phonetic perception? The precocious case of lexical tone. Journal of Memory and Language, 68(2), 123–139. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zahner, K., Schönhuber, M., & Braun, B.
(2015) The limits of metrical segmentation: intonation modulates infants’ extraction of embedded trochees. Journal of Child Language, 18, 1–27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Liu, Liquan, Antonia Götz, Pernelle Lorette & Michael D. Tyler
2022. How Tone, Intonation and Emotion Shape the Development of Infants’ Fundamental Frequency Perception. Frontiers in Psychology 13 DOI logo
Pronina, Mariia, Iris Hübscher, Ingrid Vilà-Giménez & Pilar Prieto
2021. Bridging the Gap Between Prosody and Pragmatics: The Acquisition of Pragmatic Prosody in the Preschool Years and Its Relation With Theory of Mind. Frontiers in Psychology 12 DOI logo
Pronina, Mariia, Pilar Prieto, Luca Bischetti & Valentina Bambini
2022. Expressive Pragmatics and Prosody in Young Preschoolers are More Closely Related to Structural Language than to Mentalizing. Language Learning and Development ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 8 march 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.