Intonation in Language Acquisition

188 Pages·2011·2.38 MB·English

Intonation in Language Acquisition
Evidence from German

Inaugural – Dissertation
zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades
der Philosophischen Fakultät
der Universität zu Köln
im Fach Phonetik

Thomas Grünloh
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Acknowledgements

First of all, I would like to thank my supervisors, Michael Tomasello &
Elena Lieven from the Max Planck Institute for evolutionary Anthropology and
Martine Grice from the University of Cologne, IfL – Phonetics. They not only
gave me good advice, engaging discussions and supported me with my PhD
research, they also gave me the freedom that I needed to find my own way.

To my family, I´d like to say thank you so much for always supporting
me in whatever I`ve chosen to do.

So many people at the MPI-EVA have helped to make my work
possible. In particular, I´d like to thank the nurseries, parents and children who
took the time and effort to participate in my studies. Special thanks goes to
Nadja Richter, Angela Loose and Manja Teich without whom testing wouldn´t
have been possible; also to Henriette Zeidler and Annett Witzmann who put so
much effort into organizing trips, working life and dealing with administrative
questions. I owe a great deal to Roger Mundry who helped make my statistics a
breeze, to the research assistants in Leipzig, as well as Petra Jahn and her
team.
Additionally, I wish to thank everyone at the Institut fur Phonetik, Köln. I`m very
grateful to all those institutes from whom I´ve received helpful comments at
colloquia and help with administrative problems.

Additionally, I´d like to thank everybody in the Child Language group in
Leipzig and Manchester for always being open to new (and sometimes crazy)
research proposals. You´ve always supported my ideas, read my scripts - and
joined me in celebrating Leipzig‘s night-life! You´ve all been an important part of
my life for the last three years and, hopefully, you will continue to be so. Special
thanks go to Sarah Girlich for being there when I needed your help with certain
psychological questions, and Daniel Schmerse & Robert Hepach for those
exciting kicker-games.

Also, I´d like to thank my folks in Cologne. I`m grateful also to Patrick
and Sven for always offering me a corner on their couch, and to Silke and Lars
for always being honest with me.

Finally I would like to thank Caro. You‘ve made so many sacrifices in
order for us to share our lives together. I‘m grateful for every night and day
you‘ve watched over me. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

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Abstract

This dissertation studies the role of intonation in language acquisition.
After a general introduction about the phonetic and phonological aspects of
intonation and its different forms and functions within language, two different
models of language acquisition and the role of intonation within these two models
will be presented.
Following this, I will present and discuss empirical data on the question,
whether young German learning children use intonation in order to acquire
language. Two comprehension studies will be presented. Here, I concentrate on
the question whether children understand the referential function of intonation
and whether they can use this knowledge in order to learn new words.
Additionally, I will present empirical evidence that focuses on the question
whether children use intonation in resolving participant roles in complex syntactic
constructions as well as in resolving syntactic ambiguities development.
Finally, I will present two production studies that investigate the prosodic
realization of target referents that have different informational statuses within a
discourse from both young children and parents, talking to their children.

Overall, the data from these studies suggest that language learning
children do use the intonational form of an utterance from early on in order to
understand another´s intention. Young language learning children do understand
that a certain intonational form conveys a function. Additionally, the studies
presented in this thesis suggest that children also use intonation in order to
convey their own communicative intentions. Thus, intonation is an important
instrument for young children‘s language acquisition as they use the information
that is provided by intonation, not only to learn words and to combine them to
syntactic constructions, but also for the understanding of paralinguistic properties
of language.
The findings of the studies presented in this thesis are discussed with
regard to different theories of language acquisition. Additionally, I will give insight
into the understanding of the development of young children´s use of intonation.

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Contents

Acknowledgements ................................................................................................... iii

Abstract ..................................................................................................................... v

Part I: Theoretical Background .................................................................................... 1

1. General introduction .............................................................................................. 3

2. Intonation .............................................................................................................. 5
2.1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 5
2.2. The Phonetic aspects of intonation ..................................................................... 6
Speech melody ............................................................................................ 6
Accentuation ............................................................................................... 7
2.3. The phonological aspects of intonation ............................................................. 10
2.3.1. Forms of intonation ................................................................................ 10
Autosegmental and Metrical Phonology .................................................. 10
GToBI ......................................................................................................... 16
2.3.2. Functions of intonation ........................................................................... 18
Affective functions .................................................................................... 18
Intentional functions ................................................................................. 21
2.4. Summary ............................................................................................................ 28

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3. Language Acquisition ............................................................................................ 31
3.1. The Nativist-Generative Approach ..................................................................... 31
Bootstrapping mechanisms ...................................................................... 35
3.2. Usage-Based Perspective ................................................................................... 38
Intention reading .............................................................................................. 39
Pattern finding .................................................................................................. 41
3.3. The role of intonation in the two approaches ................................................... 45

4. Intonation in language acquisition ........................................................................ 48
4.1. Prerequisite ........................................................................................................ 48
Perspective taking in infancy .................................................................... 49
Understanding communicative intentions ............................................... 50
4.2. Intonation in Information Marking .................................................................... 51

5. Research questions ............................................................................................... 59

Part II: Empirical Studies - Comprehension ............................................................... 61

6. Referential function of intonation ......................................................................... 63
6.1. Understanding intentions by intonation ............................................................ 63
6.1.1. Introduction ............................................................................................ 63
6.1.2. Data & Method ....................................................................................... 67
Participants ............................................................................................... 67
Materials and design ................................................................................. 67
Procedure .................................................................................................. 68
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Acoustic properties of the test material ................................................... 71
Coding and reliability ................................................................................ 73
6.1.3. Results & Discussion ............................................................................... 73
6.2. Competition in Word Learning: Intonation vs. Mutual Exclusivity .................... 76
6.2.1. Introduction ............................................................................................ 76
6.2.2. Data & Method ....................................................................................... 76
Participants ............................................................................................... 77
Materials, design, and procedure ............................................................. 77
Acoustic properties of the test material ................................................... 78
Coding and reliability ................................................................................ 79
6.2.3. Results & Discussion ............................................................................... 80
6.3. General discussion .............................................................................................. 81

7. The role of intonation in grammatical constructions .............................................. 83
7.1. Resolving syntactic ambiguities ......................................................................... 83
7.1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................. 83
7.1.2. Data & Method ....................................................................................... 89
Participants ............................................................................................... 89
Materials and design ................................................................................. 89
Acoustic properties of the test material ................................................... 92
Procedure .................................................................................................. 94
Coding and Reliability ................................................................................ 96
7.1.3. Results and Discussion ............................................................................ 97
Children ..................................................................................................... 97
Adult - control group ................................................................................. 98
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7.2. The role of context & intonation in resolving syntactic ambiguities ................. 99
7.2.1. Introduction ............................................................................................ 99
7.2.2. Data & Method ..................................................................................... 100
Participants ............................................................................................. 100
Materials and design ............................................................................... 100
Procedure ................................................................................................ 102
Coding and Reliability .............................................................................. 103
7.2.3. Results and Discussion .......................................................................... 103
7.3. General Discussion ........................................................................................... 106

Part III: Empirical Studies - Production ................................................................... 111

8. Young children’s intonational marking of new and given referents ...................... 113
8.1. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 113
8.2. Data & Method ................................................................................................ 115
Participants ............................................................................................. 115
Materials ................................................................................................. 116
Design and Procedure ............................................................................. 117
Coding and Reliability .............................................................................. 118
Statistical Model for Main Analysis ......................................................... 122
8.3. Results and Discussion ..................................................................................... 123
Pitch accent type ..................................................................................... 123
Pitch range .............................................................................................. 124

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