Abstract
The ability to extract word-forms from sentential contexts represents an initial step in infants' process toward lexical acquisition. By age 6 months the ability is just emerging and evidence of it is restricted to certain testing conditions. Most research has been developed with infants acquiring stress-timed languages (English, but also German and Dutch) whose rhythmic unit is not the syllable. Data from infants acquiring syllable-timed languages are still scarce and limited to French (European and Canadian), partially revealing some discrepancies with English regarding the age at which word segmentation ability emerges. Research reported here aims at broadening this cross-linguistic perspective by presenting first data on the early ability to segment monosyllabic word-forms by infants acquiring Spanish and Catalan. Three different language groups (two monolingual and one bilingual) and two different age groups (8- and 6-month-old infants) were tested using natural language and a modified version of the HPP with familiarization to passages and testing on words. Results revealed positive evidence of word segmentation in all groups at both ages, but critically, the pattern of preference differed by age. A novelty preference was obtained in the older groups, while the expected familiarity preference was only found at the younger age tested, suggesting more advanced segmentation ability with an increase in age. These results offer first evidence of an early ability for monosyllabic word segmentation in infants acquiring syllable-timed languages such as Spanish or Catalan, not previously described in the literature. Data show no impact of bilingual exposure in the emergence of this ability and results suggest rapid gains in early segmentation for words that match the rhythm unit of the native language.
Highlights
The identification of possible word-forms within sentential contexts represents an initial step in infants’ process toward lexical acquisition
The present research addresses this issue by exploring early word segmentation abilities in infants exposed to Spanish and Catalan, two Romance languages whose rhythmic properties differ from the properties of languages that have already been analyzed in previous word segmentation studies
While younger infants showed a familiarity preference, by far the most frequent pattern found in segmentation studies using natural language paradigms (Jusczyk and Aslin, 1995; Jusczyk et al, 1999a,b; Mattys et al, 1999; Mattys and Jusczyk, 2001a,b; Houston et al, 2004), older groups showed a novelty preference, i.e., a preference for the lists involving words not included in the familiarization passages
Summary
The identification of possible word-forms within sentential contexts represents an initial step in infants’ process toward lexical acquisition. Extracting word units from the input and detecting repetitions of these units in different contexts is considered a basic skill related to early vocabulary construction. Characterizing the emergence of word segmentation ability is, important in relation to the early building and growing of lexical knowledge. Exploring this emergent capacity in infants exposed to languages with different rhythmic structure offers the opportunity to identify differential features in the segmentation strategies used by infants, as well as possible variation in its developmental time-course. Finding evidence of variation in the time course for word segmentation might be useful to account for possible differences in early lexical acquisition processes from a cross-linguistic perspective. The present research addresses this issue by exploring early word segmentation abilities in infants exposed to Spanish and Catalan, two Romance languages whose rhythmic properties differ from the properties of languages that have already been analyzed in previous word segmentation studies
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