Abstract
In Japanese, some homophones can be distinguished by their lexical pitch accentual
patterns. When and how do Japanese children start using pitch accent information as
a cue to lexical distinction? In this research, we taught children two novel labels as
names for two different objects. One label was a novel homophone whose accentual
pattern was different from a familiar word, and the other, a novel non-homophone of
a familiar word. The children ’s learning of these two labels was tested by a picture
fixation task and an object choice task. The two-year-old children learned the novel
non-homophone; however, they failed to learn the novel homophone (Experiment 1).
On the other hand, three- to five-year-old children succeeded in learning both the la-
bels, and their performance improved with age (Experiment 2). These results suggest
that Japanese children gradually develop the ability to use pitch accent information
as a cue to lexical distinction in words throughout their childhood. The findings are
discussed in terms of how Japanese children pay attention to pitch information in the
learning of words.
