Tonal Alignment and Segmental Timing in English-speaking Children

Tonal alignment has been shown to be sensitive to segmental timing. This suggests that development of the former may be influenced by the latter. The developmental literature reports that English-speaking children do not attain adult-like competence in segmental timing until after age 6. While this suggests that the ability for alignment may be mastered after this age, this possibility is speculative due to paucity of data. Accordingly, the present study sought to determine whether 7- and 8-year old English-speaking children exhibit adult-like alignment and segmental timing in their speech. Seven children (ages 7 and 8) and 10 adults (ages 19 to 24) repeated pre-recorded sentences. Their productions were analyzed acoustically. The children showed adult-like performance on three out of four measures of alignment. They performed comparably with adults on all measures of segmental timing. These results suggest that the English-speaking children’s ability for alignment may reach adult levels after mastery of segmental timing