Abstract
This project aims to investigate the acquisition of the tone system of the East-Limburgian dialect of Roermond. The tone system of Roermond is particularly interesting as tone is used to express lexical as well as grammatical contrasts. For example, [ha:s] can either mean 'hare' or 'glove', depending on its tone. Similarly, [bEin] refers to the plural of 'leg' when it bears Accent 1, but to a single 'leg' when it has Accent 2. Moreover, the realization of tone varies depending on the position in the sentence, the sentence intonation, etc. Although this system seems quite a challenge for children to acquire, the tonal system of Roermond appears to be quite stable, particularly in comparison to other Limburgian dialects. To investigate how children acquire the system we will investigate infants' discrimination of tone contrasts at 12 months of age, children's word recognition of known words that are produced with the correct or incorrect tone at 18 and 24 months of age, and their comprehension of number morphology at 36 months of age. For all three tasks there will be a Dutch control group to establish which effects are purely phonetic and which are due to the acquisition of the tone system.