1. Prelinguistic development

2. Developmental periods 1;0 preverbal stage 1;0 – 1;6 one word stage 1;7 – 2;0 two-word stage 2;0 – 3;0 multiple word utterances

3. Early speech recognition Two months-old infants: recognize their mothers’ voice are able to differentiate speech sounds from noises are able to distinguish different types of languages High-amplitude sucking procedure

4. Early speech recognition Two months-old infants are able to distinguish French from Russian, but fail to differentiate French from Spanish. High-amplitude sucking procedure

5. Early speech recognition High-amplitude sucking procedure Stressed-timed languages Syllable-timed languages Mora-timed languages

6. Categorical perception Up to the age of 0;7 infants are able to recognize many allophonic distinctions that adult speakers may not be able to hear. [Werker and Tees 1984]

7. Categorical perception [t h Ot]topaspirated [stOp]stopplain /p t k/ → [p h t h k h ] / #__, V ' [p t k] elsewhere

8. Categorical perception Once infants have tuned into the phonological system of their mother language, they loose the ability to discriminate speech sounds they were able to discriminate previously. [Werker and Tees 1984]

9. Categorical perception [t]

10. phoneme /t/ Categorical perception

11. phoneme /t/ phoneme /d/

12. attractor Categorical perception phoneme /t/ phoneme /d/

13. attractor Categorical perception phoneme /t/ phoneme /d/

14. attractor Categorical perception phoneme /t/ phoneme /d/

15. Segmentation of the speech stream [demse.. tyfesalesp … esbedlaesdnd … sj … deneb]

16. Phonological cues Distributional cues Segmentation of the speech stream

17. Phonological cues Peter Jusczyk The discovery of spoken language

18. Intonation and pauses Yesterday … after we had lunch … with Sally … we went to the movies.

19. Stress ADULT:What’s that? CHILD:That’s a ‘raffe’.

20. Stress ADULT:What’s that? CHILD:That’s a ‘nana’.

21. Stress 'apple 'happy 'unhappy 'newspaper Typical placement of English word stress:

22. Stress Mother: Behave! Child: I’m heyv.

23. Phonotactic constraints English syllable structure CCCV VCCC Phoneme sequences: [g] [d] … bigdog …= big / dog

24. Allophonic variation /t/ → [t h ]top →[t]stop /l/ → [l]light →[à]call

25. Allophonic variation gadfy… sat h as … teys … oàart … tenitre word boudaries

26. Distributional cues Nonce words:tupiro golabu bidaku padoti Saffran et al. 1996 Subjects: 8 months-old infants

27. Distributional cues tupiro – bidaku – padoti – bidaku – golabu … Saffran et al. 1996

28. Distributional cues Condition1:tupiro-bidaku-… Condition 2:da-pi-ku-ro-tu-… Saffran et al. 1996

29. Headturn procedure green light light + auditory stimulus

30. Distributional cues Saffran et al. 1996

31. Distributional cues tu-pi-ro – bi-da-ku – padoti – bidaku – golabu … transitional probabilities 100%25%

32. Distributional cues Condition 1: 100-100-25-100-100-25 … Condition 2: 8.3-8.3-8.3-8.3-8.3 …

33. Function words How do children acquire their native language? My research focuses on the kinds of learning abilities required to master the complexities of language. Three broad issues characterize my work. One line of research asks what kinds of learning emerge in infancy. A second line of research probes the biases that shape human learning abilities, and the relationship between these biases and the structure of human languages. A third issue concerns the extent to which the learning abilities underlying this process are specifically tailored for language acquisition. Related research concerns infant music perception, and the relationship between music and language learning.

34. Function words How do children acquire their native language? My research focuses on the kinds of learning abilities required to master the complexities of language. Three broad issues characterize my work. One line of research asks what kinds of learning emerge in infancy. A second line of research probes the biases that shape human learning abilities, and the relationship between these biases and the structure of human languages. A third issue concerns the extent to which the learning abilities underlying this process are specifically tailored for language acquisition. Related research concerns infant music perception, and the relationship between music and language learning.

35. Function words How do children acquire their native language? My research focuses on the kinds of learning abilities required to master the complexities of language. Three broad issues characterize my work. One line of research asks what kinds of learning emerge in infancy. A second line of research probes the biases that shape human learning abilities, and the relationship between these biases and the structure of human languages. A third issue concerns the extent to which the learning abilities underlying this process are specifically tailored for language acquisition. Related research concerns infant music perception, and the relationship between music and language learning.

36. Function words How do children acquire their native language? My research focuses on the kinds of learning abilities required to master the complexities of language. Three broad issues characterize my work. One line of research asks what kinds of learning emerge in infancy. A second line of research probes the biases that shape human learning abilities, and the relationship between these biases and the structure of human languages. A third issue concerns the extent to which the learning abilities underlying this process are specifically tailored for language acquisition. Related research concerns infant music perception, and the relationship between music and language learning.

37. Early speech production Infant vocal tract

38. Early speech production Human vocal tractPrimate vocal tract

39. Early speech production > 0;2 reflexive vocalization 0;2 – 0;6vocal play 0;6 – 0;10babbling (i) dadadada [reduplicated babbling] (ii) dabagidi [varigated babbling] 0;10 >jargon (conversational babbling)

40. Canonical word forms [majos] or [mEjan]monster [tajak] or [tajaÎ]tiger [CVjCV] [®a®a]Randall [®e:®e:]window [®e:®e:] or [®i:®I]finger [®a®a]another [®V®V]

41. Canonical word forms [IS]fish [dIS]dish [uS]vest [byS]brush [IS]fetch [(C)VS]

42. Phonetic assimilation Context-free strategies Context-bound strategies

43. Phonetic assimilation [d{s]glass [bEd]bread [sek]snake [h{n]hand [da]star Reduction of consonant cluster

44. Phonetic assimilation [b{n]van [d{t]that [nEr]there [d{k]Jack [d{b]jam [dEk]check Word-initial fricatives are replaced by stops

45. Phonetic assimilation [bOt]pot [do]toe [dI]kiss Voicing of word- initial stops

46. Phonetic assimilation [dat]duck [det]gate [zus]shoes [m{ts]match [t{b@dz]cabbage Fronting of consonants

47. Phonetic assimilation [nOp]knob [b{t]bad [dOt]dog [duf]stove Devoicing of final obstruents

48. Phonetic assimilation [böt]but [gög]big [gök]book [gIg]pig [gOg]dog [dOt]dot [gök]duck [gIk]stick Harmonization of initial consonants (if the word ends in a velar consonant)

49. Motherese Exaggerated stress patterns, exaggerated intonation Many repetitions Many vocatives/attention getters Many questions Simple sentences and simple grammatical constructions Basic vocabulary

50. Fatherese Question-answer Request-response Focus of attention - response