Project C3

3rd Phase - L1-acquisition of linguistic means to mark information structure: prosodic, syntactic and lexical aspects

The research in C3 focuses on the development of the production and comprehension of linguistic markers of information structure (IS) in first language acquisition. We want to elucidate at which age and by which mechanisms children acquire the prosodic, lexical and syntactic means to encode IS in their target language. Based on the continuity assumption in language acquisition, we suppose that children have the linguistic capacities to correctly interpret IS-related structures, but the use of this capacity may be more dependent than in adults on the ease with which a proposition can be integrated in the actual discourse context. Our work in the SFB has supported these assumptions in several ways. We have shown that during the first four years of life children use prosodic salience and word order to mark information structure in their utterances. Furthermore we have shown that children take presuppositions triggered by the focus particle auch (‘also’) into account when interpreting sentences, but that this capacity can only be evidenced in tasks with very specific demands (Berger & Höhle, submitted; Höhle, Berger, Müller, Schmitz, & Weissenborn, 2009). In addition, we have evidence that the comprehension of the sentences with focus particles and with non-canonical word order can be enhanced when the sentences are presented within an adequate verbal or situational context (A. Müller 2010; Kühn, Hörnig, & Höhle, 2010).

In the next funding period of the SFB, we will follow up and complete our previous research with typically-developing children in the following areas. First, we will extend our cross-linguistic research on the development of prosodic and syntactic means of focus marking in English, French and German. These languages show systematic prosodic and syntactic differences with respect to the way in which they mark focus. Second, we will investigate how children process canonical and non-canonical sentences in different contexts using eye-tracking with the visual world paradigm. Third, we will further test the hypothesis that children’s widely evidenced problems in interpreting sentences with focus particles are largely dependent on the specific demands of the task used for testing children’s comprehension. In the remainder part of the project, we will use the insights gained from our research on typically developing children and transfer them to the investigation of children with developmental disorders. We will assess production and comprehension of sentences with focus particles and with non-canonical word order in children with Specific Language Impairment and high-functioning individuals (children and/or adults) with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Here, our general goal is to determine if and how the grammar (i.e., core computational system), on the one hand, and the pragmatic component, on the other, can be selectively affected in the (a)typically-developing language systems. Should performance of children with developmental disorders differ significantly from that of typically-developing controls, our results will provide a starting point to develop remediation tools for language rehabilitation.

2nd Phase - L1-acquisition of linguistic means to mark information structure: prosodic, syntactic and lexical aspects

The central aim of our research is to clarify when children are able to process those prosodic, lexical and syntactic elements of the linguistic input that allow them to recognize the information structure (IS) of an utterance and, from this, the target language To derive production and interpretation principles. For the first time, we were able to show that decisive developmental steps for this can already be observed in the first two years of life, and that the difficulties that children, according to various studies, show when they are still at school with the interpretation of focus particles and focus accents (Bergsma, 2006; Gualmini et al ., 2003; Hüttner et al., 2004; Paterson et al., 2003), cannot be traced back to a lack of lexical or prosodic knowledge. This calls into question the asynchrony between the development of language production and language understanding assumed by previous research in the area of ​​acquiring IS. In the second project phase, two of the priorities of the first project phase are to be continued. On the one hand, the acquisition of the prosodic marking of IS, especially focused elements, and their interaction with word order will be pursued further. A stronger differentiation in relation to different focus categories (contrasting, narrow, wide focus) and the type of focus accent is planned. Comparative language studies are also planned to clarify the age at which language-specific aspects of the marking of IS manifest themselves. Using eye movement measurements (Visual World Paradigm), the previously assumed production-reception A-symmetry in the area of ​​contrastive emphasis is to be checked. The second focus is to check this assumed asymmetry in a series of studies with partly identical test persons in the area of ​​the acquisition of focus particles (also, only). In addition, the first question to be investigated is to what extent the processing and production of selected prosodic and syntactic aspects of IS in children with specific language development disorders are affected by the disorder.

1st Phase - The acquisition of focus marking in unimpaired and impaired first language acquisition: prosodic, syntactic, and lexical aspects

There are basically three ways for a language to mark the focus of an utterance: prosodically, lexically, and syntactically. These means are not mutually exclusive but can be combined with each other.

The aim of the project is to selectively investigate the acquisition of these different types of focus markers and their conditions of use in isolation as well as in interaction in unimpaired and impaired language development. Initially the study will focus on the perception and processing of the different means of focus marking during the first three years of life in unimpaired language development. In addition, we will collect spontaneous and elicited production data on focus marking from 15 children in a longitudinal study from 18 months to 42 months of age. We will also analyse the child and adult directed speech of the mothers of these children in order to see how unambiguous the linguistic input of the children is with respect to their task to derive from it the rules of focus marking in the target language. One of our starting hypotheses is that the development of the processing of focus information is essentially determined by three factors:

• first, whether the marking of the focus is realized prosodically, syntactically, or lexically;
• second, whether the focus markers occur in isolation or in combination;
• third, by the linguistic and non-linguistic context in which the focus information is embedded.

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Principal Investigators

• Prof. Dr. Barbara Höhle (1st Phase, 2nd Phase, 3rd Phase)
• Prof. Dr. Flavia Adani (3rd Phase)
• Prof. Dr. Jürgen Weissenborn (1st Phase)

Former Staff Members

• Dr. Anja Müller
• Dr. Michaela Schmitz
• Frauke Berger
• Antje Sauermann
• Maja Stegenwallner-Schütz

Student Assistants

• Maike Riegel
• Jasmin Biel

Activities