Abstract
This comparative study investigates first and second language learners' acquisition of tone accents in Swedish. Tone accent distribution is governed by morphophonological rules and the accents are manifested in characteristic pitch patterns. LI learners acquire the full accent distinction at around the age of five, while many L2 learners never do. The tone accent production of two monolingual Swedish children (1;11‐2;5) recorded longitudinally over seven months was compared to that of American adults acquiring Swedish as L2. Both populations overgeneralized one pitch pattern to all bisyllabic words: children used Accent 2 (two‐peaked) and adults Accent 1 (one‐peaked), analogous to the prevailing pattern of their L1. These results are discussed in terms of comparing children's acquisitional strategies with those of L2 learners. Furthermore, the children's early acquisition of a marked phenomenon (Accent 2) forces us to reconsider markedness criteria and whether Accent 2 is marked from a production point of view.
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