Suprasegmental Perception

Suprasegmental Phonology prosodic boundary cues lexical stress rhythm phrasal stress lexical tone

What parts of language can you hear? Farsi passage Farsi clip

Evidence of general sensitivity to prosody newborns and very young infants we’ve already discussed HAS Sucking Preference Technique –each infant’s base rate of sucking rate is established –half of the infants hear the experimental stimulus for sucking over the base rate and hear the control stimulus for sucking under the base rate –half hear the control stimulus for sucking over the base rate and hear the experimental stimulus for sucking under the base rate

Sensitivity to prosody using sucking preference newborns can discriminate mother’s voice from that of another woman newborns can discriminate a Dr. Seuss story that their mother read during pregnancy (e.g., “The Cat in the Hat”) from another Dr. Seuss story (e.g., “The Grinch”) newborns can discrimination their native language from another language based on prosody (e.g., French vs. Russian)

Sensitivity to prosody using HAS 2-month-olds can distinguish [ba] with rising vs. falling pitch 2-month-olds who are habituated to 2 syllable “words” dishabituate to words with other syllable numbers

Sensitivity to Clausal Prosody newborns to 1-year-olds HAS Sucking Preference Headturn Preference Reinforced Headturn

Infants prefer exaggerated clausal prosody clauses are marked more in infant-directed speech –You like vanilla / and I like chocolate. –Mommy’s gonna get you some milk / when she goes to the store. –/ signals clause boundary even newborn infants prefer this type of speech, as shown by sucking preference

Infants use prosody to remember utterances 2-month-old habituated to a sentence like “Cats jump wood benches.” 2 conditions: –whole sentence “cats jump wood benches” –spliced from 2 separate clauses “Do cats jump or run” and “Are those wood benches or metal benches?” tested on –same sentence (control) –word order change “cat would jump benches” –does one group show great dishabituation than they other? Results...

Results

Interpretation of Results Infants trained on information presented as a single prosodic unit remembered it better than the same information presented as 2 units. 2-month-olds store information that coheres prosodically as a single unit.

Infants prefer typical prosodic cues to clauses Pauses inserted at slashes –Her wicked stepmother told Cinderella / that she couldn’t go to the ball. (good prosody) –Her wicked stepmother told Cinderella that she / couldn’t go to the ball. (bad prosody) Headturn Preference Procedure 10-month-olds prefer correct pauses so do 4.5-month-olds infants also show sensitivity to prosody in music (Mozart minuets)

Infants detect noises better between clauses Noise inserted at slashes –Her wicked stepmother told Cinderella / that she couldn’t go to the ball. –Her wicked stepmother told Cinderella that she / couldn’t go to the ball. Reinforced Headturn Procedure 9-month-olds were more accurate at detecting noise placed between clauses

Sensitivity to Phrasal Prosody 6- to 12-month-olds Headturn Preference

Infants prefer typical cues to phrasal prosody Pauses inserted at slashes –The caterpillar / became a beautiful butterfly. –The caterpillar became a beautiful / butterfly. Headturn Preference Procedure 9-month-olds, but not younger infants, prefer pauses at phrase boundaries Only for infant directed speech (remember when we get to syntax) Sensitivity to prosody might cue sentence structure

But all phrases aren’t equally marked Pauses inserted at slashes –It / became a beautiful butterfly. –It became a beautiful / butterfly. 9-month-olds don’t show a preference Therefore, all sentence structure cannot be gotten from prosody.

Sensitivity to Phrasal Prosody (Idealized Data)

Sensitivity to Word (Lexical) Prosody 6- to 12-month-olds Headturn Preference Procedure

Infants prefer the typical lexical stress of their language infants presented with 2 word lists –SW –WS 9-month-olds,but not 6-month-olds, prefer SW

Infants use lexical stress to locate words in sentences 9-month-olds were trained on passages like –SW words - The kingdom was located in a lovely hamlet. –WS words - The beret was near the guitar. they were tested on word lists containing parts of words from the passages or whole words –king, ham, ray, tar –kingdom, hamlet, beret, guitar Results...

Finding Words in Passages

Results of Words in Passages infants who heard SW passages preferred word lists with whole words as opposed to word parts infants who heard WS passages preferred part words remember this when we get to lexical development

Summary of Suprasegmental Perception