Intonational differences between the reduplicative babbling of French- and English-learning infants

The two- and three-syllable reduplicative babbling of five French-learning and five E.ngliah-learning infants (0;5 to 1;1) was examined in two ways for intonational differences. The first measure was a categorization into one of five categories (Rising, Falling, RiselFall, FalllRise, Level) by expert listeners. The second was the fundamental frequency (FO) from the early, middle and late portion of each syllable. Both measures showed significant differences between the two language groups. 65 % of the utterances from both groups were classified as either Rising or Falling. For the French children, these were divided equally into the rising and the falling categories, while 75 % of those utterances for the English children were judged to have falling intonation. Proportions of the other three categories were not significantly different by language environment. In both languages, though, three-syllable utterances were more likely to have a complex contour than two-syllable ones. Analysis of the FO patterns confirmed the perceptual assessment. Several aspects of the target languages help explain these intonational differences in prelinguistic babbling