Abstract
This paper gives an overview of recent studies on the use of phonological cues (accent placement and choice of accent type) to mark focus in Dutch-speaking children aged between 1;9 and 8;10. It is argued that learning to use phonological cues to mark focus is a gradual process. In the light of the findings in these studies, a first proposal is put forward on the developmental path to adult-like phonological focus-marking in Dutch.
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Notes
- 1.
A male Dutch speaker was asked to answer a number of questions in two words in comparable contexts as those in the CLPF corpus. As expected, the male speaker accented only the noun in the answer to the question ‘what is the boy doing?’.
- 2.
The robot's answer sentence was generated by splicing together the words (with a 200Â ms pause in between) recorded in a wordlist reading task. The original intonation was then erased and the pitch level was set at 200Â Hz to obtain a flat intonation pattern.
- 3.
The Wald statistic of a predictor or a predictor category is comparable to the t-statistic in a linear regression. It is the value of the regression coefficient (b) of the predictor (category) divided by its associated standard error.
- 4.
Odds are defined as the probability of an event occurring divided by the probability of an event not occurring. The odds ratio is the proportionate change in odds, calculated by dividing the odds after a unit change in the predictor by the odds before that change. It serves as an indicator of the change in odds resulting from a unit change in the predictor, similar to the b coefficient but is easier to interpret because it does not involve a logarithmic transformation. If the odds ratio is larger than 1, it indicates that as the predictor increases, the odds of the outcome occurring increases. If the odds ratio is smaller than 1, it indicates that as the predictor increases, the odds of the outcome occurring decreases (Field 2009).
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Chen, A. (2011). The Developmental Path to Phonological Focus-Marking in Dutch. In: Frota, S., Elordieta, G., Prieto, P. (eds) Prosodic Categories: Production, Perception and Comprehension. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0137-3_5
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