Intonational realisation of topic and focus in child Dutch
Title | Intonational realisation of topic and focus in child Dutch |
Publication Type | Presentation |
Year of Publication | 2007 |
Conference Name | Summer Meeting on Prosody |
Authors | Chen, Aoju |
Publisher | Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen |
Conference Location | Nijmegen, The Netherlands |
Abstract | Languages express the topic-focus distinction in different ways (e.g. word order, particles, intonation). In this study we focus on intonation and in particular look at type of pitch accent and phrasing. There has been relatively little discussion on the use of intonation to express the topic-focus distinction in child language. Prior work is mostly concerned with the use of accentuation in expressing contrast. In this study, we examined how Dutch children use pitch accent types (including deaccentuation) and phrasing to mark topic and focus in different sentence positions and how they differ from adults. The topic and focus under investigation were non-contrastive and realised as full NPs (e.g. what did the boy draw? [The boy]topic drew [a castle]focus). A picture-matching game was used to elicit topic-focus structures as answers to WH-questions. Two variables were controlled for in the answer sentences: PRAGMATIC CONDITION (topic, focus), SENTENCE POSITION (initial, final). Data were collected from monolingual Dutch children (aged 4-5 years, 7-8 years and 10-11 years) as well as adults. The intonation patterns were transcribed following ToDI notation. Our analysis has revealed five major findings:
|