title: Segmentation of vowel-initial words is facilitated by function words.
abstract: Within the first year of life, infants learn to segment words from fluent speech. Previous research has shown that infants at 0;7·5 can segment consonant-initial words, yet the ability to segment vowel-initial words does not emerge until the age of 1;1-1;4 (0;11 in some restricted cases). In five experiments, we show that infants aged 0;11 but not 0;8 are able to segment vowel-initial words that immediately follow the function word the [ði], while ruling out a bottom-up, phonotactic account of these results. Thus, function words facilitate the segmentation of vowel-initial words that appear sentence-medially for infants aged 0;11.
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics,University of California,Los Angeles.
authors.forename: Yun Jung
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics,University of California,Los Angeles.
authors.forename: Megha
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sundara
mesh_terms: D032882:Comprehension; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007804:Language Development; D008037:Linguistics; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers; D010700:Phonetics; D013060:Speech; D013067:Speech Perception