René Kager
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View article: Cross-talker lexical tone discrimination in infancy
Cross-talker lexical tone discrimination in infancy Open
This study investigated how infants deal with cross-talker variability in the perception of native lexical tones, paying specific attention to developmental changes and the role of task demands. Using the habituation-based visual fixation …
View article: The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes
The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes Open
There is robust evidence that infants' gestures and vocalisations and caregivers' contingent responses predict later child vocabulary. Recent studies suggest that dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' responses are more…
View article: Examining Dutch children’s vocabularies across infancy and toddlerhood: Demographic effects are age-specific and task-specific
Examining Dutch children’s vocabularies across infancy and toddlerhood: Demographic effects are age-specific and task-specific Open
Limited studies have examined demographic differences in children’s vocabulary in longitudinal samples, while there are questions regarding the duration, direction, and magnitude of these effects across development. In this longitudinal st…
View article: The development of tone discrimination in infancy: Evidence from a cross‐linguistic, multi‐lab report
The development of tone discrimination in infancy: Evidence from a cross‐linguistic, multi‐lab report Open
We report the findings of a multi‐language and multi‐lab investigation of young infants’ ability to discriminate lexical tones as a function of their native language, age and language experience, as well as of tone properties. Given the hi…
View article: Avoiding stress on non-lexical material in nouns and verbs: predictable verb prosody in Serbo-Croatian stress standard varieties
Avoiding stress on non-lexical material in nouns and verbs: predictable verb prosody in Serbo-Croatian stress standard varieties Open
We consider two asymmetries reported in the literature on word prosodic systems: the tendency to allow more prosodic contrast in nouns than in verbs and the tendency to avoid stress on functional material. We focus on the interaction betwe…
View article: Using Open-Source Automatic Speech Recognition Tools for the Annotation of Dutch Infant-Directed Speech
Using Open-Source Automatic Speech Recognition Tools for the Annotation of Dutch Infant-Directed Speech Open
There is a large interest in the annotation of speech addressed to infants. Infant-directed speech (IDS) has acoustic properties that might pose a challenge to automatic speech recognition (ASR) tools developed for adult-directed speech (A…
View article: Infants’ behaviours elicit different verbal, nonverbal, and multimodal responses from caregivers during early play
Infants’ behaviours elicit different verbal, nonverbal, and multimodal responses from caregivers during early play Open
Caregivers use a range of verbal and nonverbal behaviours when responding to their infants. Previous studies have typically focused on the role of the caregiver in providing verbal responses, while communication is inherently multimodal (i…
View article: Relating the prosody of infant-directed speech to children’s vocabulary size
Relating the prosody of infant-directed speech to children’s vocabulary size Open
This study examines correlations between the prosody of infant-directed speech (IDS) and children’s vocabulary size. We collected longitudinal speech data and vocabulary information from Dutch mother-child dyads with children aged 18 ( N =…
View article: Marginal contrast in loanword phonology: Production and perception
Marginal contrast in loanword phonology: Production and perception Open
Though Dutch is usually described as lacking a voicing contrast at the velar place of articulation, due to intense language contact and heavy lexical borrowing, a contrast between /k/ and /g/ has recently been emerging. We explored the sta…
View article: In Favour of Layered Feet
In Favour of Layered Feet Open
In this response we argue that the factorial typology predicted in Martínez-Paricio & Kager (2015), which representationally relies on the existence of internally layered ternary feet, is complete and accurate. We demonstrate it does not s…
View article: Effect of Complexity on Speech Sound Development: Evidence From Meta-Analysis Review of Treatment-Based Studies
Effect of Complexity on Speech Sound Development: Evidence From Meta-Analysis Review of Treatment-Based Studies Open
In the current study, we aimed at understanding the effect of exposure to complex input on speech sound development, by conducting a systematic meta-analysis review of the existing treatment-based studies employing complex input in childre…
View article: Lexical and Prosodic Pitch Modifications in Cantonese Infant-directed Speech
Lexical and Prosodic Pitch Modifications in Cantonese Infant-directed Speech Open
The functions of acoustic-phonetic modifications in infant-directed speech (IDS) remain a question: do they specifically serve to facilitate language learning via enhanced phonemic contrasts (the hyperarticulation hypothesis) or primarily …
View article: Language Specificity of Infant-directed Speech: Speaking Rate and Word Position in Word-learning Contexts
Language Specificity of Infant-directed Speech: Speaking Rate and Word Position in Word-learning Contexts Open
Previous research indicates that infant-directed speech (IDS) is usually slower than adult-directed speech (ADS) and mothers prefer placing a focused word in isolation or utterance-final position in (English) IDS, which may benefit word le…
View article: Simultaneous bilinguals who do not speak a tone language show enhancement in pitch sensitivity but not in executive function
Simultaneous bilinguals who do not speak a tone language show enhancement in pitch sensitivity but not in executive function Open
Previous studies have reported perceptual advantages, such as when discriminating non-native linguistic or musical pitch differences, among first-year infants growing up in bilingual over monolingual environments. It is unclear whether suc…
View article: Advances in formal Slavic linguistics 2017
Advances in formal Slavic linguistics 2017 Open
Advances in Formal Slavic Linguistics 2017 is a collection of fifteen articles that were prepared on the basis of talks given at the conference Formal Description of Slavic Languages 12.5, which was held on December 7–9, 2017, at the Unive…
View article: Pitch properties of infant-directed speech specific to word-learning contexts: a cross-linguistic investigation of Mandarin Chinese and Dutch
Pitch properties of infant-directed speech specific to word-learning contexts: a cross-linguistic investigation of Mandarin Chinese and Dutch Open
This study investigates the pitch properties of infant-directed speech (IDS) specific to word-learning contexts in which mothers introduce unfamiliar words to children. Using a semi-spontaneous story-book telling task, we examined (1) whet…
View article: Linking Variation in Perception and Production in Sound Change: Evidence from Dutch Obstruent Devoicing
Linking Variation in Perception and Production in Sound Change: Evidence from Dutch Obstruent Devoicing Open
This study investigates the link between the perception and production in sound change in progress, both at the regional and the individual level. Two devoicing processes showing regional variation in Dutch are studied: the devoicing of in…
View article: A Note on the Relationship between Grid Structure and Metrical Structure in Banawá
A Note on the Relationship between Grid Structure and Metrical Structure in Banawá Open
The stress system of Banawa ́, an endangered Arawan language spoken in the Brazilian Amazon, constitutes a puzzling case study for metrical phonology. It has been claimed that its metrical representations violate the Syllable Integrity Prin…
View article: The role of pitch dimensions in non-word learning by Dutch and Mandarin listeners
The role of pitch dimensions in non-word learning by Dutch and Mandarin listeners Open
Dutch listeners are known to employ positional stress for word recognition, while Mandarin listeners use pitch contour contrasts. The present study investigated the influence of pitch dimensions, namely, pitch level, pitch contour, togethe…
View article: Mora and Syllable Accentuation
Mora and Syllable Accentuation Open
The authors argue that metrical feet can immediately dominate morae and show that Internally Layered (IL) feet offer an insightful account of ‘mora-counting’ metrical patterns. This situation occurs only under duress of metrical foot form …
View article: How Do Infants Disaggregate Referential and Affective Pitch?
How Do Infants Disaggregate Referential and Affective Pitch? Open
Infants are faced with a challenge of disaggregating functions of pitch in the ambient language into affective, pragmatic or referential (the latter in tone languages only). This mini review discusses several factors that might facilitate …
View article: Lexical Tones in Mandarin Chinese Infant-Directed Speech: Age-Related Changes in the Second Year of Life
Lexical Tones in Mandarin Chinese Infant-Directed Speech: Age-Related Changes in the Second Year of Life Open
Tonal information is essential to early word learning in tone languages. Although numerous studies have investigated the intonational and segmental properties of infant-directed speech (IDS), only a few studies have explored the properties…
View article: Monolingual and Bilingual Infants’ Ability to Use Non-native Tone for Word Learning Deteriorates by the Second Year After Birth
Monolingual and Bilingual Infants’ Ability to Use Non-native Tone for Word Learning Deteriorates by the Second Year After Birth Open
Previous studies reported a non-native word learning advantage for bilingual infants at around 18 months. We investigated developmental changes in infant interpretation of sounds that aid in object mapping. Dutch monolingual and bilingual …
View article: Infant-directed Speech Is Not Always Slower: Cross-linguistic Evidence from Dutch and Mandarin Chinese
Infant-directed Speech Is Not Always Slower: Cross-linguistic Evidence from Dutch and Mandarin Chinese Open
It has been widely accepted that infant-directed speech (IDS) has a slower speaking rate than adult-directed speech (ADS) (e.g., Cristia, 2013), which is assumed to facilitate language development. This study aims at finding out whether th…
View article: The internally layered foot in Dutch
The internally layered foot in Dutch Open
Recent metrical studies have proposed that, under certain circumstances, a weak syllable may be adjoined to a binary foot, giving rise to a minimally recursive foot. Adding to a growing body of research from metrical stress and foot-condit…
View article: Keeping up with the monolinguals
Keeping up with the monolinguals Open
Previous studies investigating possible differences between monolingual and bilingual infants’ vocabulary development have produced mixed results. The current study examines the size of the total receptive and expressive vocabulary, total …
View article: Disambiguate or not? — The Role of Prosody in Unambiguous and Potentially Ambiguous Anaphora Production in Strictly Mandarin Parallel Structures
Disambiguate or not? — The Role of Prosody in Unambiguous and Potentially Ambiguous Anaphora Production in Strictly Mandarin Parallel Structures Open
It has been observed that the interpretation of pronouns can depend on their accentuation patterns in parallel sentences as “John hit Bill and then George hit him”, in which ‘him’ refers to Bill when unaccented but shifts to John when acce…