How monolingual Persian-speaking children use intonation to signal information status in narrative discourse

Background and Aim: Recent research on adult Persian suggests that speakers use particular pitch accent types to signal the information status of discourse referents. Methods To these aims, ۴۰ monolingual Persian-speaking children and ۱۰ adults were encouraged to narrate stories based on ۸ picture stories in which information status of referents were carefully controlled. The stories were labeled to determine whether they included target words, full NP, pronouns. The subjects' pitch accent patterns were identified using Praat software. Results: The present study investigates development and learning of pitch accent by Persian monolingual children for tagging identifiable information status (old, accessible, and un-used-inactive) and unidentifiable information (completely new) within information structure theory of Lambrecht (۱۹۹۶). Conclusion: Results showed that adults used L* (+ H) pitch accent to tag old information, and (L +) H* pitch accent to tag accessible and new (un-used-inactive) information. Adults also used (L +) H* pitch accent to tag unidentifiable information (completely new). Assessment of using L* (+ H) pitch accent in two old and completely new information situations indicates that this pitch is specific to old information. The results showed that the dominant pattern in tagging old information status by ۳-۴, ۴-۵, ۵-۶ and ۶-۷ year-old children is (L+) H*. These findings show that children up to ۵ years old consider the old referents to be the same as the new ones when they are activated, and therefore they use the same pitch accent for old information and new information. Also, children from the age of ۵ onwards, similar to adults, use L* (+ H) pitch accent to tag old information. According to the findings of the present study, the dominant pattern for tagging accessible information was (L +) H* in ۳-۴, ۴-۵, ۶-۵ year-old children. These findings show that children from the age of ۳ produce accessible information as new information with (L +) H* pitch accent, just like adults. Also, the dominant pattern in tagging new (un-used-inactive) information or identifiable information in ۳-۴, ۴-۵, ۵-۶, and ۶-۷ year-old children is (L +) H*. The findings also showed that the dominant pattern in tagging completely new information or unidentifiable information in ۳-۴, ۴-۵, ۶-۶ year-old children is represented by (L +) H*. These findings revealed that ۳-۴, ۴-۵, ۵-۶, and ۶-۷ year-old children for tagging unidentifiable information (completely new) use (L+) H* pitch accent.

کلیدواژه ها:

information structure ، identifiable information ، unidentifiable information ، Persian children