French native speakers in the making: From language-general to language-specific voicing boundaries

By examining voice onset time (VOT) discrimination in 4- and 8-month-olds raised in a French-speaking environment, the current study addresses the question of the role played by linguistic experience in the reshaping of the initial perceptual abilities. Results showed that the language-general −30- and +30-ms VOT boundaries are better discriminated than the 0-ms boundary in 4-month-olds, whereas 8-month-olds better discriminate the 0-ms boundary. These data support explanations of speech development stressing the effects of both language-general boundaries and linguistic environment (attunement theory and coupling theory). Results also suggest that the acquisition of the adult voicing boundary (at 0 ms VOT in French vs. +30 ms VOT in English) is faster and more linear in French than in English. This latter aspect of the results might be related to differences in the consistency of VOT distributions of voiced and voiceless stops between languages.