International audienceThis study investigates prosodic phrasing of bracketed lists in German. We analyze variation in pauses,phrase-final lengthening and f0 in speech production and how these cues affect boundary perception. In linewith the literature, it was found that pauses are often used to signal intonation phrase boundaries, while finallengthening and f0 are employed across different levels of the prosodic hierarchy. Deviations fromexpectations based on the standard syntax-prosody mapping are interpreted in terms of task-specific effects.That is, we argue that speakers add/delete prosodic boundaries to enhance the phonological contrastbetween different bracketings in the experimental task. In perception, three experiments were run, in whichwe tested only single cues (but temporally distributed at different locations of the sentences). Results fromidentification tasks and reaction time measurements indicate that pauses lead to a more abrupt shift inlisteners' prosodic judgments, while f0 and final lengthening are exploited in a more gradient manner. Hence,pauses, final lengthening and f0 have an impact on boundary perception, though listeners show differentsensitivity to the three acoustic cues

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Infants as young as six months are sensitive to prosodic phrase boundaries marked by three acoustic cues: pitch change, final lengthening, and pause. Behavioral studies suggest that a language-specific weighting of these cues develops during the first year of life; recent work on German revealed that eight-month-olds, unlike six-month-olds, are capable of perceiving a prosodic boundary on the basis of pitch change and final lengthening only. The present study uses Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) to investigate the neuro-cognitive development of prosodic cue perception in German-learning infants. In adults' ERPs, prosodic boundary perception is clearly reflected by the so-called Closure Positive Shift (CPS). To date, there is mixed evidence on whether an infant CPS exists that signals early prosodic cue perception, or whether the CPS emerges only later-the latter implying that infantile brain responses to prosodic boundaries reflect acoustic, low-level pause detection. We presented six- and eight-month-olds with stimuli containing either no boundary cues, only a pitch cue, or a combination of both pitch change and final lengthening. For both age groups, responses to the former two conditions did not differ, while brain responses to prosodic boundaries cued by pitch change and final lengthening showed a positivity that we interpret as a CPS-like infant ERP component. This hints at an early sensitivity to prosodic boundaries that cannot exclusively be based on pause detection. Instead, infants' brain responses indicate an early ability to exploit subtle, relational prosodic cues in speech perception-presumably even earlier than could be concluded from previous behavioral results.

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