Chapter published in:
The Development of Prosody in First Language Acquisition
Edited by Pilar Prieto and Núria Esteve-Gibert
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 23] 2018
► pp. 185–206

Chapter 10
The development of prosodic structure

A usage-based approach

| University of York

Scholarly views are divided as to the source of children’s knowledge of prosodic structure. Within the framework of a usage-based approach, this chapter compares prosodic structures in children learning four languages at the end of the single-word period in order to identify sources of both similarities and differences between children, within and across language groups. The similarities can generally be traced back to common constraints on the neurophysiology of infant vocal production, while the differences between language groups reflect ambient language accentual patterning and dominant word shapes. Individual differences within and across groups additionally relate to differing child mappings of input forms to familiar production patterns.

Article outline
  • Introduction
  • A developmental perspective on early prosodic structures
  • Data analysis
    • English
    • English: Selected and adapted variants
    • French
    • French: Selected and adapted variants
    • Italian
    • Italian: Selected and adapted variants
    • Finnish
    • Finnish: Selected and adapted variants
  • Overview of findings
    • Prosodic structures: Production and representation
  • Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 24 May 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.23.10vih
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