Abstract
Final-syllable invariance is characteristic of diminutives (e.g.,doggie), which are a pervasive feature of the child-directed speech registers of many languages. Invariance in word endings has been shown to facilitate word segmentation (Kempe, Brooks, & Gillis, 2005) in an incidentallearning paradigm in which synthesized Dutch pseudonouns were used. To broaden the cross-linguistic evidence for this invariance effect and to increase its ecological validity, adult English speakers (n = 276) were exposed to naturally spoken Dutch or Russian pseudonouns presented in sentence contexts. A forced choice test was given to assess target recognition, with foils comprising unfamiliar syllable combinations in Experiments 1 and 2 and syllable combinations straddling word boundaries in Experiment 3. A control group (n = 210) received the recognition test with no prior exposure to targets. Recognition performance improved with increasing finalsyllable rhyme invariance, with larger increases for the experimental group. This confirms that word ending invariance is a valid segmentation cue in artificial, as well as naturalistic, speech and that diminutives may aid segmentation in a number of languages. The experiments reported in this article were supported by British Academy Grant SG-35090.
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The experiments reported in this article were supported by British Academy Grant SG-35090.
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Kempe, V., Brooks, P.J., Gillis, S. et al. Diminutives facilitate word segmentation in natural speech: Cross-linguistic evidence. Memory & Cognition 35, 762–773 (2007). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193313
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193313