Prelinguistic Vocalizations: Can Toddlers Express Communicative Functions by Means of Pitch Manipulations?

The present research explores the relations between the communicative functions of prelinguistic vocalizations and two prosodic aspects such as final pitch contour and mean, minimum and maximum pitch. The vocal productions of ten children, with ages ranging from 16 to 24 months, were analyzed. Final results confirm (1) the falling pitch contour is the most common one; (2) the rising contour is relatively more frequent in the case of some functions, such as requests, which demand some kind of reaction from the interlocutor; (3) basic communicative functions can be differentiated by their mean, minimum and maximum pitch; (4) communicative vocalizations can not be differentiated from non communicative ones by their final pitch contour and (5) it is possible to distinguish them based on their mean, minimum and maximum pitch.