Doctoral Dissertation Research: The development of question intonation in Puerto Rican Spanish

Ohio State University, The, Columbus OH

Investigators

Abstract

Previous studies of intonation in Puerto Rican Spanish (PRS) have shown that adults use three distinct intonation contours, or melodies, to convey different types of information when they ask yes-no questions: one for when the speaker doesn't have any idea what the answer is, one for when the speaker thinks the information being asked about is true, and one for when the speaker is asking about something s/he did not expect to be true (counter-expectation). How is it that children learn these contours and their meanings? Ms. Armstrong will travel to Puerto Rico for two months to carry out two experiments. The first experiment is designed to test how adults perceive the three contours mentioned above when they are heard in different types of speech contexts, allowing a better description of the adult system that children acquire. The second experiment is a task designed to assess how well 4-8 year olds are able to use intonation to understand what a speaker believes. For instance, when children hear counter-expectation intonation, are they able to attribute it to a speaker in an unexpected or surprising situation? If younger children tend to pass the task, it would refute claims that sentence level comprehension for intonation is late-acquired. This is the first study to closely examine how children use intonation as an indicator of speakers' thoughts and beliefs and will be of interest to both linguists and developmental psychologists.