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Intonational differences between the reduplicative babbling of French- and English-learning infants*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

D. H. Whalen ,
Andrea G. Levitt  and
Qi Wang
D. H. Whalen*
Affiliation:
Haskins Laboratories
Andrea G. Levitt
Affiliation:
Haskins Laboratories and Wellesley College
Qi Wang
Affiliation:
Haskins Laboratories and University of Connecticut
*
Haskins Laboratories, 270 Crown Street, New Haven, CT 06511, USA.
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Abstract

The two- and three-syllable reduplicative babbling of five French-learning and five English-learning infants (0;5 to 1; 1) was examined in two ways for intonational differences. The first measure was a categorization into one of five categories (RISING, FALLING, RISE-FALL, FALL-RISE, LEVEL) by expert listeners. The second was the fundamental frequency (F0) from the early, middle and late portion of each syllable. Both measures showed significant differences between the two language groups. 65% of the utterances from both groups were classified as either rising of falling. For the French children, these were divided equally into the rising and the falling categories, while 75% of those utterances for the English children were judged to have falling intonation. Proportions of the other three categories were not significantly different by language environment. In both languages, though, three-syllable utterances were more likely to have a complex contour than two-syllable ones. Analysis of the F0 patterns confirmed the perceptual assessment. Several aspects of the target languages help explain these intonational differences in prelinguistic babbling.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , October 1991 , pp. 501 - 516
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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Footnotes

*

The research reported here was supported by NIH grant DC-00403 to Haskins Laboratories and Catherine T. Best. We thank Catherine T. Best, Carol A. Fowler, Janet F. Werker and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments.

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