The emergence of lexical and post-lexical prominence in Italian: A case study

Cinzia Avesani; Serena Bonifacio; Giulia Calignano; Valeria D'Aloia; Francesco Olivucci; Mario Vayra; Claudio Zmarich

doi:10.17469/O2109AISV000001

Authors

Cinzia Avesani Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione, sede di Padova, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Italia https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9911-1189
Serena Bonifacio Ricercatrice indipendente
Giulia Calignano Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università di Padova, Italia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2913-8770
Valeria D'Aloia Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio”Chieti-Pescara
Francesco Olivucci Ricercatore indipendente
Mario Vayra Alma Mater Studiorum -Università di Bologna, Italia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6198-2437
Claudio Zmarich – Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione, sede di Padova, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Italia https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0384-4041

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17469/O2109AISV000001

Keywords:

development of prosodic prominence, stress, accent, Italian, Autosegmental Metrical Theory of Intonation

Abstract

Our study identifies the developmental trajectory of prominence at lexical and post-lexical levels. From very early in life infants are sensitive to lexical stress contrasts, but, due to very limited vocal capabilities, the production of stress contrasts only starts in the second year of age. We address the question of whether, when and how a child learns to differentiate lexical (stress) from post-lexical prominence (accent) by acoustically examining the spontaneous productions of one child from North-East Italy recorded every 3 months from 18 to 36 months of age. Our analysis is cast in the framework of the Autosegmental Metrical Theory of Intonation. Results show that during the child’s prosodic development the duration of IP nuclear vowels increases linearly, the duration of unstressed vowels decreases linearly and the duration of stressed, prenuclear and ip nuclear vowels is progressively but non-linearly adjusted, consistent with the adult prosodic hierarchy.