Interference of Accent System Variation with the Acquisition of Compound Accent Rule: A Cross-dialectal Study

Abstract

The purpose of our study is to examine how prosodic rules are acquired by children. In the past, the discussion on the process of language acquisition has been concerned mainly with the syntactic or articulatory aspects of speech production and speech perception. In contrast to this, little is known about the prosodic characteristics of speech. Our study aims at investigating how Japanese compound accent rules (CAR) are acquired by native Japanese children. To better understand CAR acquisition, this study contrasts CAR acquisition in three dialects which vary in accent systems: Tokyo Japanese, Kyoto Japanese and Kagoshima Japanese. The accent system variation is supposed to interfere with the acquisition of the compound accent rule. Specifically, whether the complexity of the accent system suppresses or promotes the acquisition of rules will be discussed.