Early acquisition of word stress: A cross-linguistic infant study

Keij, B. & Kager, R.

Utrecht Institute of Linguistics, Utrecht University

According to the Metrical Segmentation Hypothesis (Cutler & Norris 1988), metrical structure is used by infants to segment words from the speech stream. However, the evidence for this hypothesis comes mainly from initial stress languages (Höhle et al. 2009). Consequently, it is unknown how language-specific this hypothesis is and a cross-linguistic approach should be adopted to tackle this issue (Nazzi et al. 2006). Infants learning metrically opposed languages, namely infants learning Dutch (initial/ pre-final stress) and infants learning Turkish (final stress), are tested. In order to use metrical cues for word segmentation, infants first have to build a representation of the metrical structure of their native language. Therefore, we test the emergence of rhythmic preference in Dutch- and Turkish-learning infants during the first year of life. Instead of using the traditional head turn preference procedure, an innovative preferential listening paradigm using eye tracking is employed to test the emergence of rhythmic preferences. Do Dutch- and Turkish-learning infants show a language-specific rhythmic preference and at what age does this preference appear? In total, 90 Dutch-learning and 90 Turkish-learning infants aged 4, 6 and 8 months have been tested. The first results of the Dutch-learning infants showed that they do not present a rhythmic preference at 4 months of age, but that they do show a language-specific rhythmic preference at 6 months of age. However, since there was no interaction between the factors stress pattern and age, we cannot yet speak of a development between 4 and 6 months. Therefore we tested an additional group of 8-month-olds for both language groups. These ?fresh off the shelf?-results will be presented in this paper and will give us more insight into the development during the first year of life, as well as allow us to interpret the results in a cross-linguistic perspective.