Function morphemes in young children's speech perception and production

Infants imitated sentences that contained English or non-English functors and that were controlled for both suprasegmental and segmental factors. Children omitted English functors more frequently than non-English functors, indicating perceptual sensitivity to familiar vs. unfamiliar elements. Suggests that children may be able to use functors early in language acquisition to solve the segmentation and labeling problems. (Abstract amended)