Infants' developing sensitivity to native language phonotactics: A meta-analysis

Abstract

We used Bayesian modeling to aggregate experiments investigating infants' sensitivity to native language phonotactics. Our findings were based on data from 83 experiments on about 2000 infants learning 8 languages, tested using 4 different methods. Our results showed that, unlike with artificial languages, infants do exhibit sensitivity to native language phonotactic patterns in a lab setting. However, the exact developmental trajectory depends on the phonotactic pattern being tested. Before 8 months, infants tuned into non-local dependencies between vowels: specifically, vowel harmony. Between 8- and 10-months, infants demonstrated a consistent sensitivity to both local dependencies and non-local consonant dependencies. Sensitivity to non-local vowel dependencies that are not based on harmony emerged only after 10-months. These findings provide a benchmark for future experimental and computational research on the acquisition of phonotactics.