@article {347, title = {Intonational realisation of topic and focus in child Dutch}, year = {2007}, publisher = {Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen}, address = {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:

  1. Children of all age groups and adults employ a similar set of pitch accent types. These accent types (e.g. L*H, H*L, H*, !H*L) form the core of the inventory of pitch accents in Dutch. This finding thus shows that children as young as 4 have adult-like inventory of accent types.
  2. Like adults, children of all age groups deaccent topic more frequently than focus independent of sentence position. This result indicates children{\textquoteright}s early sensitivity to the accentuation-focus and deaccentuation-topic associations, as suggested in prior work.
  3. Children acquire H*L as the typical {\textquoteleft}focus accent{\textquoteright} at the age of 7 or 8. 4- to 5-year-olds exhibit a weak preference for H*L over other accent types in sentence-initial position and no preference for H*L in sentence-final position. Possibly, frequent use of H*L in sentence-initial topic in adult Dutch has made it difficult for young children to associate H*L primarily with focus.
  4. Children also acquire deaccentuation as the typical {\textquoteleft}topic intonation{\textquoteright} at the age of 7 or 8. 4- to 5- year-olds realise topic similarly frequently with deaccentuation, L*H and H*L in sentence-final position.
  5. Only 4- to 5-year-olds appear to use phrasing to realise topic, which forms its own intonational phrase (IP). Older children and adults utter the topic-focus structure mostly as one IP.
}, author = {Aoju Chen} }