@Article{Ramus2002,
  author   = {Ramus, Frank},
  journal  = {Ann Rev Lang Acqu},
  title    = {Language discrimination by newborns: Teasing apart phonotactic, rhythmic, and intonational cues},
  year     = {2002},
  number   = {1},
  pages    = {85--115},
  volume   = {2},
  abstract = {Speech rhythm has long been claimed to be a useful bootstrapping cue
	in the very first steps of language acquisition. Previous studies
	have suggested that newborn infants do categorize varieties of speech
	rhythm, as demonstrated by their ability to discriminate between
	certain languages. However, the existing evidence is not unequivocal:
	in previous studies, stimuli discriminated by newborns always contained
	additional speech cues on top of rhythm. Here, we conducted a series
	of experiments assessing discrimination between Dutch and Japanese
	by newborn infants, using a speech resynthesis technique to progressively
	degrade non-rhythmical properties of the sentences. When the stimuli
	are resynthesized using identical phonemes and artificial intonation
	contours for the two languages, thereby preserving only their rhythmic
	and broad phonotactic structure, newborns still seem to be able to
	discriminate between the two languages, but the effect is weaker
	than when intonation is present. This leaves open the possibility
	that the temporal correlation between intonational and rhythmic cues
	might actually facilitate the processing of speech rhythm.},
}

{"_id":"hiEjRjeYjfb6KZgC9","bibbaseid":"ramus-languagediscriminationbynewbornsteasingapartphonotacticrhythmicandintonationalcues-2002","author_short":["Ramus, F."],"bibdata":{"bibtype":"article","type":"article","author":[{"propositions":[],"lastnames":["Ramus"],"firstnames":["Frank"],"suffixes":[]}],"journal":"Ann Rev Lang Acqu","title":"Language discrimination by newborns: Teasing apart phonotactic, rhythmic, and intonational cues","year":"2002","number":"1","pages":"85–115","volume":"2","abstract":"Speech rhythm has long been claimed to be a useful bootstrapping cue in the very first steps of language acquisition. Previous studies have suggested that newborn infants do categorize varieties of speech rhythm, as demonstrated by their ability to discriminate between certain languages. However, the existing evidence is not unequivocal: in previous studies, stimuli discriminated by newborns always contained additional speech cues on top of rhythm. Here, we conducted a series of experiments assessing discrimination between Dutch and Japanese by newborn infants, using a speech resynthesis technique to progressively degrade non-rhythmical properties of the sentences. When the stimuli are resynthesized using identical phonemes and artificial intonation contours for the two languages, thereby preserving only their rhythmic and broad phonotactic structure, newborns still seem to be able to discriminate between the two languages, but the effect is weaker than when intonation is present. This leaves open the possibility that the temporal correlation between intonational and rhythmic cues might actually facilitate the processing of speech rhythm.","bibtex":"@Article{Ramus2002,\n author = {Ramus, Frank},\n journal = {Ann Rev Lang Acqu},\n title = {Language discrimination by newborns: Teasing apart phonotactic, rhythmic, and intonational cues},\n year = {2002},\n number = {1},\n pages = {85--115},\n volume = {2},\n abstract = {Speech rhythm has long been claimed to be a useful bootstrapping cue\n\tin the very first steps of language acquisition. Previous studies\n\thave suggested that newborn infants do categorize varieties of speech\n\trhythm, as demonstrated by their ability to discriminate between\n\tcertain languages. However, the existing evidence is not unequivocal:\n\tin previous studies, stimuli discriminated by newborns always contained\n\tadditional speech cues on top of rhythm. Here, we conducted a series\n\tof experiments assessing discrimination between Dutch and Japanese\n\tby newborn infants, using a speech resynthesis technique to progressively\n\tdegrade non-rhythmical properties of the sentences. When the stimuli\n\tare resynthesized using identical phonemes and artificial intonation\n\tcontours for the two languages, thereby preserving only their rhythmic\n\tand broad phonotactic structure, newborns still seem to be able to\n\tdiscriminate between the two languages, but the effect is weaker\n\tthan when intonation is present. This leaves open the possibility\n\tthat the temporal correlation between intonational and rhythmic cues\n\tmight actually facilitate the processing of speech rhythm.},\n}\n\n","author_short":["Ramus, F."],"key":"Ramus2002","id":"Ramus2002","bibbaseid":"ramus-languagediscriminationbynewbornsteasingapartphonotacticrhythmicandintonationalcues-2002","role":"author","urls":{},"metadata":{"authorlinks":{}}},"bibtype":"article","biburl":"https://endress.org/publications/ansgar.bib","dataSources":["xPGxHAeh3vZpx4yyE","TXa55dQbNoWnaGmMq"],"keywords":[],"search_terms":["language","discrimination","newborns","teasing","apart","phonotactic","rhythmic","intonational","cues","ramus"],"title":"Language discrimination by newborns: Teasing apart phonotactic, rhythmic, and intonational cues","year":2002}