The acquisition of relations between prosody and communicative intention: First associations between form and function

This paper deals with the relation between communicative intention and prosody in vocalizations uttered by infants 16 to 24 months-old. Results show that (1) communicative and non-communicative vocalizations are not significantly different based on pitch final contour (rising, falling and flat), (2) but show significantly different fundamental frequency values, which are higher in communicative vocalizations; and that (3) early communicative functions (declarative, imperative, emotive, mimic, action guide, and conversational "filling") can be differentiated based on their final pitch contour and, more clearly, (4) on their fundamental frequency, which is overall higher in imperatives (and emotive vocalizations) than in declaratives.