UC Berkeley

Scholarly views are divided as to the source of children’s knowledge of prosodic structure. Within the framework of a usage-based approach, this chapter compares prosodic structures in children learning four languages at the end of the single-word period in order to identify sources of both similarities and differences between children, within and across language groups. The similarities can generally be traced back to common constraints on the neurophysiology of infant vocal production, while the differences between language groups reflect ambient language accentual patterning and dominant word shapes. Individual differences within and across groups additionally relate to differing child mappings of input forms to familiar production patterns.