Cue-weighting in processing of prosodic boundaries in Dutch: An event-related potential (ERP) study

Across languages, major prosodic boundaries, such as intonational phrase (henceforth, IP) boundaries, are typically signalled via three types of prosodic cues, namely pitch change, final lengthening, and pause. However, the relative weight of each cue in the perception of IP boundaries differs across languages. Little is known about which cues are important in Dutch. This study investigates cue-weighting during processing of IP boundaries in Dutch by examining the effects of varying combinations of cues on the neurophysiological correlate of boundary processing, i.e., the Closure Positive Shift (CPS). Twenty-five native speakers of Dutch listened to renditions of a name sequence, connected by the coordinating conjunction en (‘and’), i.e., Moni en Lilli en Manu, with or without an IP boundary after the second name. Event-related potential (ERP) results showed that the CPS was elicited by IP boundaries if a pause was present, regardless of whether pitch rise or final lengthening was omitted. In contrast, no CPS was observed when the pause cue was absent, even if both the other two cues were present. Together, these findings suggest that pause has a crucial role in the processing of IP boundaries in Dutch coordinated constructions, thereby differing from findings previously reported for the other West Germanic languages such as English and German.