title: Infants' acceptance of phonotactically illegal word forms as object labels.
abstract: We investigated 16- and 20-month-olds' flexibility in mapping phonotactically illegal words to objects. Using an associative word-learning task, infants were presented with a training phase that either highlighted or did not highlight the referential status of a novel label. Infants were then habituated to two novel objects, each paired with a phonotactically illegal Czech word. When referential cues were provided, 16-, but not 20-month-olds, formed word-object mappings. In the absence of referential cues, infants of both ages failed to map the novel words. These findings illustrate the complex interplay between infants' developing sound system and their word learning abilities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology,University of Calgary.
authors.forename: Ena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Vukatana
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology,University of Calgary.
authors.forename: Suzanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Curtin
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology,University of Calgary.
authors.forename: Susan A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Graham
mesh_terms: D001245:Association Learning; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D010700:Phonetics; D012660:Semantics; D014706:Verbal Learning