University of New Hampshire, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Durham, New Hampshire, USA.
Brown University, Department of Cognitive, Linguistic & Psychological Sciences, Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
J Child Lang. 2021 May;48(3):541-568. doi: 10.1017/S0305000920000434. Epub 2020 Sep 1.
Our motivation was to examine how toddler (2;6) and adult speakers of American English prosodically realize information status categories. The aims were three-fold: 1) to analyze how adults phonologically make information status distinctions; 2) to examine how these same categories are signaled in toddlers' spontaneous speech; and 3) to analyze the three primary acoustic correlates of prosody (F0, intensity, and duration). During a spontaneous speech task designed as an interactive game, a set of target nouns was elicited as one of three types (new, given, corrective). Results show that toddlers primarily used H* across information status categories, with secondary preferences for deaccenting given information and for using L+H* for corrective information. Only duration distinguished information status, and duration, average pitch, and intensity differentiated pitch accent types for both adults and children. Discussion includes how pitch accent selection and input play a role in guiding prosodic realizations of information status.
我们的动机是研究美国英语幼儿（2 岁 6 个月）和成人说话者如何在韵律上实现信息状态类别。目的有三：1）分析成人如何在语音上做出信息状态的区分；2）检验这些相同的类别如何在幼儿的自然话语中得到体现；3）分析韵律的三个主要声学关联物（F0、强度和时长）。在一项作为互动游戏设计的自然语言任务中，一组目标名词被引出为三种类型（新的、已知的、纠正的）之一。结果表明，幼儿主要在信息状态类别中使用 H*，其次是给已知信息去重音和用 L+H*表示纠正信息。只有时长可以区分信息状态，而时长、平均音高和强度可以区分成人和儿童的重音类型。讨论包括了重音选择和输入如何在引导信息状态的韵律实现中发挥作用。
