Chapter 4: Learning Sound Patterns

4.1 Where Are the Words?

• Probing infants’ knowledge of words
• Method 4.1: The head-turn preference paradigm
• Familiar words break apart the speech stream
• Discovering what words sound like
• Box 4.1: Phonotactic constraints across languages
• 4.1 Questions to Contemplate

4.2 Infant Statisticians

• Tracking transitional probabilities: The information is out there
• Is statistical learning a specialized human skill for language?
• Box 4.2: ERPs reveal statistical skills in newborns
• 4.2 Questions to Contemplate

4.3 What Are the Sounds?

• How many distinct sounds are there in a language?
• A catalogue of sound distinctions
• Language at Large 4.1: The articulatory phonetics of beatboxing
• Phonemes versus allophones: How languages carve up phonetic space
• Box 4.3: Vowels
• What sound distinctions do newborns start with?
• Method 4.2: High-amplitude sucking
• 4.3 Questions to Contemplate

4.4 Learning How Sounds Pattern

• The distribution of allophones
• Box 4.4: Allophones in complementary distribution: Some crosslinguistic examples
• From patterns of distribution to phonemic categories
• 4.4 Questions to Contemplate

4.5 Some Patterns Are Easier to Learn than Others

• Do crosslinguistic tendencies reflect learning biases?
• Evidence for learning biases
• Researchers at Work 4.1: Investigating potential learning biases
• Do language universals influence the perception of sounds?
• 4.5 Questions to Contemplate
• Digging Deeper: How does learning change with age and experience?   

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