Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Tonal Alignment And Segmental Timing In English-Speaking Children, Afua Blay

Purdue Linguistic Association Symposium

Tonal alignment has been shown to be sensitive to segmental timing. This suggests that development of the former may be influenced by the latter. The developmental literature reports that English-speaking children do not attain adult-like competence in segmental timing until after age 6. While this suggests that the ability for alignment may be mastered after this age, this possibility is speculative due to paucity of data. Accordingly, the present study sought to determine whether 7- and 8-year old English-speaking children exhibit adult-like alignment and segmental timing in their speech. Seven children (ages 7 and 8) and 10 adults (ages 19 …