LINGUIST List 8.159

Sat Feb 1 1997

Books: Child Language Acquisition

Editor for this issue: Ljuba Veselinova <ljubalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Debra M. Hardison, New book posting: Subject: PROSODY IN ACQUISITION

CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
PROSODY IN ACQUISITION

PROSODY AND THE ACQUISITION OF GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES IN CHINESE LANGUAGES.
	Feng-Sheng Hung. 150 pp. Prepaid orders by U.S. check or money
	order. $20.00 + p&h $3.50 US, $5.00 CAN, $5.50 other. IULC
	Publications, 720 E. Atwater Ave., Bloomington IN 47401.
	<iulcindiana.edu> URL: http://ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu/~iulc/

In this comparison study, Hung investigates the influence of
prosodic and phonological characteristics on the acquisition of
frequently occurring grammatical morphemes in two
morphosyntactically similar but prosodically different
languages, namely Taiwan Mandarin Chinese (MC) and Taiwanese
(TW). Through an analysis of the patterns of realization and
omission of these morphemes in children's speech, he concludes
that rhythmic characteristics of languages can affect
segmentation of input speech by providing different kinds of
prosodic handles for the novice to grasp. Metrical feet may
offer MC children one kind of segmentation handle: neutral-toned
grammatical morphemes that closely follow full-toned content
words are in a position to be picked up as parts of unopened
packages. In TW, however, since there is no opposition between
full- and neutral-toned syllables, all syllables contribute
equally to linguistic rhythm, and the syllable more likely
functions as a segmentation unit for TW children.