Objective
To understand the meaning of a sentence, people have to access the meaning of its words as well as perform a syntactic analysis. Likewise, infants acquiring their native language have to learn its words and syntax. One of the problem encountered by infants and adults is that the speech input is continuous (spoken words are not delimited by silent pauses). I will test how phrasal prosody (marked by intonation and rhythm) may constrain lexical access and syntactic analysis.
Phrasal prosody groups words together into constituents such as phonological phrases that typically contain one or two content words (nouns, verbs) and some function words (articles, auxiliaries). Recent experiments indicate that American and French infants, as well as French adults, use phonological phrase boundaries to constrain on-line lexical access (Gout et al. 2004, Christophe et al. 2004, Millotte et al. 2005). I will evaluate the precise mechanisms through which phrasal prosody influences lexical access. Thus a prosodic analyser could output probabilities that a boundary occurs at each point in time, and these probabilities would influence lexical activation.
Using behavioural tasks with French infants and adults, I will manipulate the strength of prosodic boundaries (how well they are marked, how high in the prosodic hierarchy) in order to evaluate parametrically the influence of prosody on lexical activation. Phonological phrase boundaries also coincide with syntactic boundaries, so that they could constrain syntactic acquisition and syntactic analysis. I will test this with infants (24-month-olds), young children (5-year-olds) and adults in behavioural tasks.
A better comprehension of normal language development and processing will help us to improve language teaching methods, to diagnose children at risk for language deficits, and to better understand language disorders. This project also has practical applications in the field of speech technology (text-to-speech synthesis...).
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
FP6-2004-MOBILITY-5
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
GENEVE 4
Switzerland
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.