Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 6, 2026
08:32
Examining Online Syntactic Processing of Spoken Complex Sentences in Chinese Using Dual-Modal Interference Tasks
Published on: September 5, 2019
6.0K
Phrasal prosody constrains syntactic analysis in toddlers
Alex de Carvalho1, Isabelle Dautriche2, Isabelle Lin3
1Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, DEC-ENS/EHESS/CNRS, Ecole normale supérieure - PSL Research University, Paris, France; Maternité Port-Royal, AP-HP, Faculté de Médecine Paris Descartes, France.
Cognition
|March 14, 2017
Summary
Toddlers use speech rhythm (prosody) to understand sentence structure and word meaning early in language acquisition. This research shows young children can interpret ambiguous words based on how sentences sound.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Developmental Psychology
- Computational Linguistics
Background:
- Early language acquisition involves understanding sentence structure and word meaning.
- Prosodic cues, like rhythm and intonation, play a role in speech perception.
- Syntactic ambiguity poses a challenge for language learners.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if phrasal prosody influences syntactic analysis in toddlers.
- To determine if toddlers can use prosodic information to resolve syntactic ambiguity.
- To explore the role of prosody in early word meaning discovery.
Main Methods:
- Utilized French noun-verb homophones in locally ambiguous sentences.
- Employed an intermodal preferential looking procedure with 20- and 28-month-old toddlers.
- Presented auditory sentence fragments and visual stimuli representing different interpretations.
Main Results:
- Toddlers exploited prosodic boundaries to determine syntactic structure.
- Participants correctly identified the syntactic category of ambiguous words based on prosody.
- Eye-gaze data indicated successful disambiguation of word meaning via prosodic cues.
Conclusions:
- Toddlers leverage prosodic structure to recover sentence syntax early in language development.
- Prosodic information aids in predicting the syntactic category of upcoming words.
- This ability is crucial for efficient word meaning acquisition and learning.
Keywords:
Eye movementsInfants speech perceptionLanguage acquisitionParsingPhrasal prosodySentence processingSyntactic ambiguity resolutionMore Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
01:22Language Development
1.0K
Children master language quickly and with relative ease, supported by both biological predisposition and reinforcement. B. F. Skinner (1957) proposed that language is learned through reinforcement, while Noam Chomsky (1965) argued that language acquisition mechanisms are biologically determined.
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...
1.0K
01:24Components of Language
872
Language, whether spoken, signed, or written, consists of specific components: lexicon and grammar. The lexicon is the vocabulary of a language, comprising its words. Grammar is the set of rules used to convey meaning through the lexicon. For example, English grammar adds “-ed” to most verbs to indicate past tense. Words are formed by combining phonemes, which are the basic sound units of a language. Different languages have different sets of phonemes (e.g., “ah” vs.
872
03:26Framing Effects
8.0K
Information is everywhere and its presentation—such as how and when items are presented—can impact our perceptions and decisions surrounding the info. This broad concept umbrellas framing effects—influences that occur due to the way information is framed in its appearance, whether it’s purely the order or the specific wording of a message. Let’s take a look at numerous ways in which two versions of something can objectively say the same thing, yet we respond in...
8.0K
01:27Language and Cognition
909
Language serves as a bridge between ideas and communication, influencing how individuals perceive and interact with the world. Psychologists have long debated whether language shapes thought or vice versa. This discussion gained grip with Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf in the 1940s, who proposed that language determines thought, a concept known as linguistic determinism. They suggested that the vocabulary and structure of a language influence how its speakers think and perceive reality.
909
01:26Constraints and Statical Determinacy
1.0K
In structural engineering, the equilibrium of a system is not only determined by its equations of equilibrium but also with the help of constraints. Constraints refer to restrictions on the motion of a system. The proper combinations of constraints can minimize the total number of constraints needed to maintain a system in mechanical equilibrium. When this happens, the system is said to be statically determinate. For such systems, the unknown reaction supports can be estimated using equilibrium...
1.0K
00:49Complementation Tests
6.4K
A complementation test is a simple cross to identify whether the two mutations are located on the same gene or different genes. It was first performed by Edward Lewis in the 1940s while working on fruit flies. He developed the test to identify the location and arrangement of different mutations on chromosomes.
Organisms heterozygous for different mutations are crossed pairwise in all combinations. If present on different genes, the mutations can complement each other by providing the missing...
Organisms heterozygous for different mutations are crossed pairwise in all combinations. If present on different genes, the mutations can complement each other by providing the missing...
6.4K