Neonatal perception of the rhythmical structure of speech: The role of stress patterns

Abstract

This paper approaches the problem of newborns' segmentation of speech into units, taking into account the language-specificity of phonological units and prosodic elements. Current hypotheses are discussed and a rhythmical hypothesis is proposed according to which newborns have a predisposition to pay attention to the rhythm of speech. At the words' level, they would perceive the rhythm of words, as characterized by the binary and ternary alternations of stressed-unstressed syllables/vowels (stress patterns) and, in some languages, by the alternation of rising-falling pitches (pitch patterns). Empirical evidence in favour of this hypothesis is provided. The methodology used to study infants' speech perception is also considered. Furthermore, a discussion is opened about the processing of stress patterns and vowels in words and about the development in the use of the mother tongue's stress patterns for speech segmentation, phonetic discrimination and foreign language discrimination. ©1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.