Stress Pattern Preference in Spanish-Learning Infants: The Role of Syllable Weight

Infancy : the Official Journal of the International Society on Infant Studies
Ferran Pons, Laura Bosch

Abstract

As a result of exposure, infants acquire biases that conform to the rhythmic properties of their native language. Previous lexical stress preference studies have shown that English- and German-, but not French-learning infants, show a bias toward trochaic words. The present study explores Spanish-learning infants' lexical stress preferential patterns and the role of syllable weight at 9 months of age. Spanish is a syllable-timed language with no vowel reduction and variable stress. Around 50% of the word types in Spanish are disyllabic, with a superior proportion of trochees than iambs (60% and 40%, respectively). Experiment 1 with CV.CV pseudo-words failed to reveal a clear trochaic bias in 9-month-old Spanish-learning infants. However, when preference was explored with items containing a heavy syllable (CVC.CV and CV.CVC, respectively), both a trochaic (Experiment 2) and an iambic preference (Experiment 3) could be elicited. These results suggest that knowledge about the close and highly regular link between heavy syllables and stress assignment in Spanish can be easily acquired and determines infants' preference at 9 months of age, while for CV.CV items, the trochaic bias appears to be weak. Our results broaden the current k...Continue Reading

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Oct 21, 2009·Developmental Science·Katrin SkoruppaSharon Peperkamp
Jan 1, 2001·Infancy : the Official Journal of the International Society on Infant Studies·Laura Bosch, Núria Sebastián-Gallés

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Citations

Jan 18, 2014·Developmental Psychobiology·David J Lewkowicz
Mar 22, 2014·International Journal of Behavioral Development·David J Lewkowicz, Ferran Pons
Mar 5, 2016·Frontiers in Psychology·Ranka Bijeljac-BabicThierry Nazzi
Jan 4, 2017·The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·Amy LaCrossRobert Fromont
Mar 1, 2012·Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research : JSLHR·Osnat Segal, Liat Kishon-Rabin
Jun 2, 2015·Journal of Child Language·Melissa A Redford, Grace E Oh
Feb 24, 2015·The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·Sandra Gordon-SalantJulie I Cohen
Mar 1, 2012·Infancy : the Official Journal of the International Society on Infant Studies·Linda Polka, Megha Sundara
Jul 27, 2011·The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·Katrin SkoruppaAmanda Seidl

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