The DireSpeech project (Interpreting Directive Speech Acts in child and adult language: The role of form and prosody) explores how Directive Speech Acts (DSAs), such as commands, requests,advice or permissions, are interpreted in Greek. We focus on imperative and subjunctive clauses in root environments, investigating how their form and prosody shape their meaning.

DSAs can convey a wide range of interpretations, from granting permission to issuing commands. While the topic has attracted significant theoretical interest. Little experimental work has examined the factors influencing their interpretation within a context. Our study aims to fill in this gap by exploring how the form of a DSA (imperative vs. subjunctive) and prosody impact both intended meaning and comprehension in adult and child language.

Research Stages

Our work is divided into three key stages:

1. Production and comprehension study of DSAs in children acquiring Greek as L1.
   

2. Theoretical and experimental analysis of DSAs in adult Greek.

3. Collection and linguistic analysis of spontaneous child speech data (L1 Greek, ages 3–6).