Boll-Avetisyan, N. 1 , Höhle, B. 1 & Weissenborn, J. 2
1 Universität Potsdam
2 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
This study investigates rhythmic speech segmentation in early infancy. In Exp.1, German-learning 6-month-olds were familiarized with trisyllables (BATEko, PEGAdi) with a strong-strong-weak (SSw) rhythm. Infants should segment this as S#Sw due to stress clash avoidance (*SS) and preference for cohesion of trochaic (Sw) patterns. After familiarization, infants either heard S#Sw items (BA_TEko, PE_GAdi) with a pause between the two strong syllables or SS#w items (BATE_ko, PEGA_di) with a pause before the weak syllable. Here, infants preferred SS#w over S#Sw items (p<.001), suggesting a novelty preference as a consequence of S#Sw-segmentation during familiarization. In support of this interpretation, this preference was not obtained in Exp.2 using the same test without prior familiarization (Experiment*Itemtype: p<.02). Exp.3 assessed infants? segmentation of iambs (wS), but here they showed no preference for wS#S or w#SS after wSS-familarization (p=.9), indicating that they cannot segment rhythmic patterns that are untypical for German.
The present study constitutes first evidence that infants as young as 6 months use rhythmic cues for segmentation. In order to fully understand the contribution of clash avoidance as a cue for segmentation, we will next run Exp.4 with wSw, which English-learning infants did not segment into w#Sw until 9 months (Echols et al., 1997).