Percepção do pareamento entre prosódia e sintaxe por falantes do português brasileiro

Abstract

This study aims how the prosodic cues are used by babies during the language acquisition, and by adults and children during the language processes. Specially, the pairing between prosodic and syntactic boundaries are focused, and to what extent prosodic boundaries is perceived as cues for recognition of syntactic boundaries. The Prosodic Phonologic (NESPOR & VOGEL, 1986) and the Prosodic Bootstrapping (MORGAN e DEMUTH, 1996; CHRISTOPHE et al., 1997; 2008) are used as theoretical basis. To investigate the prosodic-syntax relationship and the perceptual continuum holded by Prosodic Bootstrapping hypothesis, it was made two experiments: with babies, 8-years-children and adults. It was verified if the well-formed prosodic surround, combined with a syntactic unit, makes clause’s elements recognition easier. The babies’ findings shows a preference for syntactic and prosodic well-formed stimuli. The adults’ data, on one hand, reveals a relevant effect of syntactic/prosodic congruence. The 8-years-children, on the other hand, had reacted to stimuli in a randomly way, which suggests that those children did not pay attention to the wellformed prosodic surround combined with the syntactic phrase, as was done by adults.