Children's production of word accents in Swedish revisited

The two word accents in Stockholm Swedish (Accent I and Accent II) are distinguished by a consistent falling pitch contour on the stressed syllable of Accent II words. The current study presents new types of evidence that this feature of word accent can be systematically found in words produced by 16- to 18-month-old Swedish-speaking children. Compared to other disyllabic productions, the stressed syllable in Accent II words have a larger F-o decline, more sequences of high-low turning points identified by a stylized contour algorithm and an earlier Fo peak. In addition, a negative correlation is found between the value of Fo peak and Fo change in the stressed syllable. Taken together, these findings indicate that children learning Swedish have internalized a subtle but lexically relevant pitch contour by a very early stage of word production.