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12‐Month‐Olds’ Phonotactic Knowledge Guides Their Word–Object Mappings
Author(s) -
MacKenzie Heather,
Curtin Suzanne,
Graham Susan A.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01764.x
Subject(s) - phonotactics , object (grammar) , psychology , linguistics , czech , word (group theory) , language acquisition , task (project management) , associative learning , language development , phonology , natural language processing , communication , computer science , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , philosophy , mathematics education , management , economics
This study examined whether 12‐month‐olds will accept words that differ phonologically and phonetically from their native language as object labels in an associative learning task. Sixty infants were presented with sets of English word–object ( N = 30), Japanese word–object ( N = 15), or Czech word–object ( N = 15) pairings until they habituated. Infants associated CVCV English, CCVC English, and CVCV Japanese words, but not CCVC Czech words, with novel objects. These results demonstrate that by 12 months of age, infants are beginning to apply their language‐specific knowledge to their acceptance of word forms. That is, they will not map words that violate the phonotactics of their native language to objects.