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Cross-language word segmentation by 9-month-olds

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Abstract

Dutch-learning and English-learning 9-month-olds were tested, using the Headturn Preference Procedure, for their ability to segment Dutch words with strong/weak stress patterns from fluent Dutch speech. This prosodic pattern is highly typical for words of both languages. The infants were familiarized with pairs of words and then tested on four passages, two that included the familiarized words and two that did not. Both the Dutch-and the English-learning infants gave evidence of segmenting the targets from the passages, to an equivalent degree. Thus, English-learning infants are able to extract words from fluent speech in a language that is phonetically different from English. We discuss the possibility that this cross-language segmentation ability is aided by the similarity of the typical rhythmic structure of Dutch and English words.

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Correspondence to Peter W. Jusczyk.

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This work was supported by a National Research Scientist Predoctoral Award to D.M.H. and by Research Grant 15795 from NICHD and Senior Scientist Award 01490 from NIMH to P.W.J. The study in The Netherlands was conducted while D.M.H. was a visitor at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. The authors are grateful to Joost Beekman for assistance recruiting and testing subjects in The Netherlands and Niels Janssen for computing frequency analyses of the vowels in the target words. The authors also thank Nuria Sebastian-Galles and Ann Marie Jusczyk for helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.

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Houston, D.M., Jusczyk, P.W., Kuijpers, C. et al. Cross-language word segmentation by 9-month-olds. Psychon Bull Rev 7, 504–509 (2000). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03214363

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