The effect of musicality on the development of Mandarin prosody

Abstract

Past work has shown a link between children’s musicality and language learning. But research is still sparse on the effect of musicality on the development of prosody, which uses tonal and temporal cues also relevant for processing music. In particular, the questions of when and how musicality affects the development of various aspects of the prosodic grammar remain largely unknown. In this study, we investigate the effect of musicality on the development of focus-marking in Mandarin-speaking 4-to 6-year-olds using speech data elicited in a controlled but interactive setting. We have found that the development of focus-marking in Mandarin is only weakly affected by the learner’s musicality. Specifically, children produce adult-like distinctions between on-focus and pre-focus positions, regardless of musicality. A musicality effect is observed in the contrast between on-focus and post-focus positions only in the 4-year-olds. The limited musicality effect on focus-marking is in contrast with our previous work, in which we found that musicality has a salient effect on the lexical tone production by children younger than 6 years. Together, the current results suggest that musicality advantage in the development of prosody depends on aspects of the prosodic grammar and the stage of development.