The acquisition of intonation as a focus-marker in Dutch

Aoju ChenMax Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 1 April, 2008

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Focus

Topic Aboutness

Focus Information about the topic Typically new

new

Who is painting the Easter-egg?

Grandpa is painting the Easter-egg.

focus topic

given

Look! An Easter egg! Someone is painting it.Speaker A:

Speaker B:

higher information value

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4

Focus domain

All-focus e.g. Is Marina smart?

[She teaches math].

focus on a constituent e.g. what does Marina do for a living?

She [teaches math].

Focus on a one-word constituent e.g. What does Martina teach?

She teaches [Math].

Broad focus vs. narrow focus

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Intonational marking of focus

Pitch accent placement Accenting focus and deaccenting post-focus constituents (in English,

German, Dutch, Central Catalan etc.)

Pre-focus constituents can get accented for rhythmic reasons (e.g. Gussenhoven 1984)

Types of pitch accent (English, German)

Focus – a fall accent (‘accent A’) Topic – a fall-rise accent (‘accent B’) (Jackendoff 1972)

Phrasing (Korean, Japanese, French)

A focus constituent forms its own phrase

Pitch range Expansion of pitch range on focus, pitch range compression in post-

focal constitutents (e.g. Mandarin Chinese)

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Focus intonation in Dutch

In SVO declaratives (Chen 2007)

Object-focus (as answer to Wh-question on the object) Accent the object with the fall accent (H*L) The pre-focal subject gets also accented (H*L, H*) The verb is often unaccented

Subject-focus (as answer to Wh-question on the subject) Accent the subject with H*L and H*; deaccent the post-focal verb

and object

de poetsvrouw pakt de vaas%L H*L H*L L%

de poetsvrouw pakt de vaas%L H*L H*L L% de poes neemt een bad

%L H*L L%

de poes neemt een bad%L H*L L%

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Focus intonation in Mandarin Chinese

A tone language Intonation is used to express lexical contrasts

E.g. miao (H), miao (LH), miao (MLH), miao (HL)

No pitch accent

Focus is realised as variations in pitch range in which the lexical tone is realised Focus: expansion of pitch range Post-focus: Compression of pitch range Pre-focus: ‘natural’ pitch range (e.g. Xu 1999)

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Xu (1999), as reproduced in Edward Flemming’s talk in Soeterbeeck in 2008

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Focus intonation in Japanese

A pitch-accent language Pitch accent is used to express lexical contrasts

e.g. Japanese (unaccented vs. accented with H*L words – denki ‘biography’ vs. dénki ‘electricity’) (Gussenhoven 2004)

Focus is realised via phrasing Inserting a major phrase boundary before a minor phrase

(an accentual phrase) containg focus prevents downstep from lowering the pitch span of the focused minor phrase

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Question 1 for language acquisition

Sensitivity of intonation Examples…

Can children acquiring a West Germanic language correctly use intonation to mark focus early on? as early as late two-word stage?

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Tentative answer to Question 1

Yes The biological basis underlying focus marking (Bolinger 1982)

Data from English two-year-olds (Wieman 1976) Two-word sentences from 5 English-speaking children (1;3 – 2;4) Semantic relation between the two word decides accent placement

Verb + locative (e.g. play museum, goes here, coming up): accent the locative Information structure can overrule the accent placement determined as

such (N=14) ‘What’s in the street?’ ‘FIRETRUCK street’

Can we reduplicate Wieman’s results in Dutch kids?

Excitation in the speaker pitch

Interesting parts of an utteranceFocus

accentuation

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Study 1: Children under the age of 2

Chen & Fikkert (2007a)

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Participants & data collection

Longitudinal data from 3 monolingual Dutch children aged 1;4 ~ 2;1 (from the CLPF database)

Eva (1;4 – 1;7) Jarmo (1;8 – 2;1) Robin (1;7 – 1;10)

Recorded during natural play sessions at home Each session: 30 – 45 minutes Recorded once every two weeks Interlocutors: one parent and/or one experimenter Typical activities: reading picture books & playing with toys

(Levelt 1994, Fikkert 1994)

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Method

Two-word utterances (N=66) Produced in the late two-word stage Types of utterances

Noun + Noun utterances (N=6) Noun + Verb utterances (N=31) Particle + Verb utterances (N=26)

Semantic and pragmatic analysis Determining the context of each utterance (by the 2nd author)

Semantic relation expressed in each utterance Focus in each sentence Intended as a question or not

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Results: intonation

H* !H*L (L%) H* H*L (L%)

mama fiets%LH*L> ~H*L L%

zand (s)pelen%L H* !H*L L%

zand (s)pelen%L H* !H*L L%

zand (s)pelen%L H* !H*L L%

mama fiets%LH*L> ~H*L L%

zand (s)pelen%L H* !H*L L%

ijs eten%L H* H*L> L%

ijs eten%L H* H*L> L%

Both words were frequently accented The two most frequent tunes

H* !H*L L% H* H*L L%

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Results: Accent placement and semantics

Noun + Noun utterances (N=6) Noun + Verb utterances (N=31) Particle + Verb utterances (N=26)

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

Ijsje eten ‘ice-cream eat’ Object+Verb

Indirect Obj_Verb

Subject_predicate

Locative_Verb

Noun_Modifier

Oma kijken ‘(to) gramma look’

Poes huilen ‘cat cry’

Zand spelen ‘(in) sand play

Poes (ge)tekend ‘cat drawn’

examples

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Results: accent placement and focus

Object + Verb (N=20)

ijs eten%L H* H*L> L%

ijs eten%L H* H*L> L%

Mother: Wat zijn ze aan het doen? ‘What are they doing?

% distribution of accentuation in Object+Verb utterances

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

focal non-focal

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Two-word utterances were produced with accentuation on both words independent of the semantic relation expressed and information status of each word, contra Wieman (1976).

Children are still trying out different accent types and deaccentuation at this stage; semantics and pragmatics have not yet come into play in accent placement.

Can children acquiring a West Germanic language correctly use intonation to mark focus early on? No, at least not in the two-word stage.

Interim conclusions

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When do children distinguish focus from non-focus intonationally?

Question 2 for language acquisition

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Study 2: 3-year-olds

Chen & Fikkert (2007b)

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Method

Participants 8 monolingual Dutch children (3;0-3;4)

Task Picture description Eliciting two types of constructions

Single noun constructions (control condition) Adjective + Noun constructions

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An example of experimental trials

PART 2: talking about the topic Experimenter: Shall we tell this to another animal? Let’s see who appears now? Child: A rabbit. Experimenter: Yes, indeed. Shall we tell the rabbit what kind of cow it is? It is a… Child: [young]focus [cow]topic.

PART 1: establishing the topic Experimenter: Look! What is on the picture? Child: [A cow] focus

Experimenter: Yes, a cow. I think the cow is young. Do you also think it is young?

Child: yes.

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Results

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

H* H*L L* L*H L*HL !H* !H*L deacc

Noun_focal Adj_focal Noun_Topical

Een jonge koe.

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Results (cont’d)

3-year-olds used downstepped and non-downstepped accents systematically

Focus: exclusively non-downstepped accents In single Noun constructions: H*L In Adj+N constructions: most often H*

Topic: most often !H*L

The most frequent tune in Adj+N constructions is: H* !H*L

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Interim discussion

3-year olds use downstepped vs. non-downstepped accents to mark the topic-focus distinction different from children in the two-word stage

However, 3-year olds could also simply be using the most frequently used tune in the late two-word stage because at that stage H* !H*L is the most

frequently used tune

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Interim discussion (cont’d)

Initial evidence against the interpretation that 3-year-olds simlply used the most frequent tune in the late two-word stage

Children at that stage did not yet seem to use this tune in Adj+Noun constructions

We found in our data:

[Adj+Noun]focus:H*L H*L

[Adj]focus + [Noun]topic :

[Adj]focus: H*, H*L, and deaccentuation

[Noun]topic: H*L

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When do children distinguish focus from non-focus intonationally? At the age of 3. Dutch 3-year-olds distinguish focus from non-fcous

intonationally in [Adj]focus + Noun constructions

But not yet in an adult-like way: Adults use H*L on the Adjective (not H*)

And deaccent the Noun (not !H*L)

Interim conclusion

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Future research

We’ve investigated focus marking in one particular structure only.

To interpret the data conclusively, we need to investigate: Intonation of [Adj]topic + [Noun]focus

If downstepped accent is children’s attempt to deaccent, they’d deaccent more easily in initial position

If downstepped accent is the pattern that 3-yr-olds use to mark the topical noun, they’d use an acoustically weaker accent to mark the topical adjective (e.g. H*)

Focus marking in other constructions

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When do children distinguish focus from non-focus intonationally in an adult-like way?

Question 3 for language acquisition

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Study 3: 4 to 5-year-olds4- to 5-year-olds (N=12, 4;5~5;7, mean age 5;1)

Chen (2007)

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A picture matching game

Method

Experimenter

Kijk! Een biet!Look! A beet!

Wie eet een biet?Who eats the beet?

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Method (cont’d)

SVO answer sentences were elicited 18 sentences with focus on the subject

18 sentences with focus on the object

Initial Topic

Who protects the bike?The fox protects the bike.

What does the fox protect?The fox protects the forest.

Final Focus

Final TopicInitial Focus

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Results

4- to 5-yrs-olds (N=12): initial focus

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

deacc L*H H*L H* !H*L OTHE% d

istrib

utio

ns

of acc

en typ

es

focal-sub

topical-obj

Adults: initial focus

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

deacc L*H H*L H* !H*L OTHER

% d

istrib

utio

n of

acc

ent t

ypes

focal_sub

topical_obj

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Results

4- to 5-yrs-olds (N=12): final focus

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

deacc L*H H*L H* !H*L OTHER% d

istrib

utio

ns

of acc

en typ

es

topical-sub

focal-obj

Adults: final focus

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

deacc L*H H*L H* !H*L OTHER

% d

istri

butio

n of

acc

ent t

ypes

topical_sub

focal_obj

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Adults: initial focus

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

deacc L*H H*L H* !H*L OTHER

% d

istri

butio

n of

acc

ent t

ypes

focal_sub

topical_obj

Adults: final focus

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

deacc L*H H*L H* !H*L OTHER

% d

istri

butio

n of

acc

ent t

ypes

topical_sub

focal_obj

4- to 5-yrs-olds (N=12): initial focus

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

deacc L*H H*L H* !H*L OTHE

focal-subtopical-obj

4- to 5-yrs-olds (N=12): final focus

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

deacc L*H H*L H* !H*L OTHER

topical-subfocal-obj

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Interim conclusions 4- to 5-year-olds mark focus and topic in an almost adult-like

way SUBEJCT (H*, H*L) + verb + obj (zero accent) Sub (H*L, H*) + verb + OBJET (accenting) Unlike adults:

they also accent topical-object with L*H, H*L and !H*L and accent focla object with L*H in addition to H*L and !H*L

A weaker preference for H*L over H* in focal-subject

Why do they accent focal-object most often with L*H? Uncertain about the focal information themselves because of

difficulty with the words Seek confirmation from the adult regardless of whether they are

certain about the focal information or not

Infrequent use of L*H in a subsequent experiment where the words were highly familiar to them

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A follow-up study

The same picture matching game

7- to 8-year-olds

10- to 11-year-olds

At the age of 7, children become adult-like in the intonational marking of focus and topic

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Results: 7- to 8-yr-olds7- to 8-yr-olds (N=5): sentence-initial

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

deacc L*H H*L H* !H*L OTHER

% d

istri

butio

ns o

f acc

en ty

pes focus

topic

7- to 8-yr-olds (N=5): sentence initial 7- to 8-yr-olds (N=5): sentence-final

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

deacc L*H H*L H* !H*L OTHER

focus

topic

7- to 8-yrs-olds (N=5): sentence-final

Adults (N=10): sentence-initial

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

deacc L*H H*L H* !H*L OTHER

% d

istr

ibu

tion

s o

f acc

en

t typ

es

focustopic

Adults (N=10): sentence-final

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

deacc L*H H*L H* !H*L OTHER

focustopic

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3 yrs

4 to 5 yrs

7 yrs

Distinguish focus from non-focus via intonation but in a non-adultlike way

Distinguish focus from topic in an almost adult-like way A weaker preference for H*L over H* of focus initial focus Final topic is also accented with L*H and !H*L; final focus is accented with L*H in addition to H*L and !H*L

Adult-like in marking focus and topic intonationally

2 yrs Accent every word in an utterance, finding everything they say interesting

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Thank you!

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Transcribing intonation contour Praat (www.praat.org) Use high (H) and low (L) tone to capture the shape of the contour of the sentence Pitch level of the begin and end of the Intonational phrase (boundary tones)

Begin: %H, %L End: L%, H%

Change in pitch (+/- perceptual prominence) in stressed syllables (pitch accents) Starting from the stressed syllable

The ‘dominant’ tone of the stressed syllable: H*, L* How is the ‘dominant’ tone in the stressed syllable is continued …

in the rest of the same word (if the accent is phrase final) In the rest of the segments till the next accent (if the accent is not phrase final)

H*L L*H H* H*LH

[The boy drew a castle]IP

HL*

L

H

H*L

%%

H%

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Key references• Chen, A. (2007). Intonational realisation of topic and focus by Dutch-acquiring 4- to 5-

year-old. In Proceedings of International Congress of Phonetic Sciences XVI, 1553-1556, Saarbrücken, Germany.

• Chen, A. and Fikkert P. (2007a). Intonation of early two-word utterances in Dutch. In Proceedings of International Congress of Phonetic Sciences XVI, 315-320, Saarbrücken, Germany.

• Chen, A. and Fikkert P. (2007b). Dutch 3-year-olds' use of intonation in marking topic and focus. Poster presented at Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition (GALA). Barcelona, Spain. 6-8 September, 2007.

• Fikkert, P. (1994). On the acquisition of prosodic structure. PhD dissertation. University of Leiden.

• Gussenhoven, C. (1984). On the grammar and semantics of sentence accents. Dordrecht: Foris.

• Gussenhoven, C. (2004). The Phonology of tone and intonation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Jackendoff, R. (1972). Semantic interpretation in generative grammar. Cambridge: MIT Press.

• Levelt, C. (1994). On the acquisition of a place. PhD dissertation. University of Leiden.