A cross-linguistic study of prosodic lengthening in child-directed speech


Elinor Payne, University of Oxford
Brechtje Post, University of Cambridge
Lluïsa Astruc, The Open University
Pilar Prieto, and Maria del Mar Vanrell, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

We compared the manifestation of prosodic lengthening in child-directed speech with the adult-directed speech of 6 Catalan and English women. Results showed a less variegated system of prosodic lengthening in CDS, with the selective enhancement of certain structures, notably phrase-final lengthening and (in English) nuclear accented syllables.