Formal regularity of the falling tone in children’s early meaningful speech

Abstract

Previous research has shown that adults’ intonation is relatively unaffected by small to moderate differences in utterance length. To address conflicting findings that have been reported in developmental studies, this investigation was designed to determine whether children’s nuclear tones are independent of the length of the phonetic strings in which the tones are expressed. Nine children were studied from the one-word period (18 months of age) until three months after the onset of syntax (24 months). The children’s falling pitch contours were analyzed by using a schematic continuum that depicts accent range and complexity as gradients within bipolar directional classes. The results indicated that contour complexity was variable during the period of early meaningful speech. However, accent range tended to be uniform in phonetic strings that differed in number of syllables. This formal regularity associated with accent range preceded the onset of word combinations in the children’s language development. The findings suggest that accent range in falling tones is one of the first expressive features of the grammar that one-year-old children acquire.