Natural rhythmic patterns in English verse: Evidence from child counting-out rhymes

Abstract

Counting-out rhymes are part of an oral tradition whose primary participants are children. These facts are used to justify the claim that the rhythmic structure of counting-out rhymes can be attributed to natural preferences more readily than could the structure of formal verse considered alone. The first study uncovered a number of similarities between formal and counting-out verse. The rhythm of counting-out rhymes is constrained by the principle of rhythmic alternation, the nuclear stress and compound rules, and foot boundaries. In addition, both trochaic and iambic meters seem to exist as natural categories in counting-out rhymes. Finally, children appear to associate different grammatical categories with different degrees of stress, in a manner very similar to patterns found in adult verse. The second study explored the variants of one common counting-out rhyme and reports changes that preserve or improve the poetics of the rhyme. The discussion offers one definition of what a "natural" rhythmic pattern in verse might mean: A pattern that has parallels in the rhythmic structure of ordinary speech. This definition makes the study of verse attractive to psycholinguists for three reasons. First, factors that influence speech rhythm can be examined for their relevance to poetic rhythm, a possibility that renders tractable the psycholinguistic study of one form of language creativity. Second, hypotheses about the rhythmic structure of speech can be formulated from knowledge of poetic rhythm. Finally, studying the structure of child verse could foster understanding of the acquisition of prosodic rules, an area that has been relatively neglected in developmental psycholinguistics. © 1988.