The Prosody of Two-Syllable Words in French-Speaking Monolingual and Bilingual Children: A Focus on Initial Accent and Final Accent.

ABSTRACT: This study examined the acoustic characteristics of disyllabic words produced by French-speaking monolingual and bilingual children, aged 2;6 to 6;10, and by adults. Specifically, it investigated the influence of age, bilingualism, and vocabulary on final-to-initial syllable duration ratios and on the presence of initial and final accent. Children and adults took part in a word-naming task in which they produced a controlled set of disyllabic words. Duration and maximum pitch were measured for each syllable of the disyllabic word and these values were inserted into mixed-effects statistical models. Results indicated that children as young as 2;6 obtained final-to-initial syllable duration ratios similar to those of adults. Young children realized accent on the initial syllable more often a

SUBMITTER: Kehoe M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9014682 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature