Syntactic Cues Take Precedence Over Distributional Cues in Native and Non-Native Speech Segmentation

This study investigates whether syntactic cues take precedence over distributional cues in native and non-native speech segmentation by examining native and non-native speech segmentation in potential French-liaison contexts. Native French listeners and English-speaking second-language learners of French completed a visual-world eye-tracking experiment. Half the stimuli contained the pivotal consonant /t/, a frequent word onset but infrequent liaison consonant, and half contained /z/, a frequent liaison consonant but rare word onset. In the adjective–noun condition (permitting liaison), participants heard a consonant-initial target (e.g., le petit tatoué; le fameux zélé) that was temporarily ambiguous at the segmental level with a vowel-initial competitor (e.g., le petit [t]athée; le fameux [z]élu); in the noun–adjective condition (not permitting liaison), they heard a consonant-initial target (e.g., le client tatoué; le Français zélé) that was not temporarily ambiguous with a vowel-initial competitor (e.g., le client [*t]athée; le Français [*z]élu). Growth-curve analyses revealed that syntactic context modulated both groups’ fixations (noun–adjective > adjective–noun), and pivotal consonant modulated both groups’ fixations (/t/ > /z/) only in the adjective–noun condition, with the effect of the consonant decreasing in more proficient French learners. These results suggest that syntactic cues override distributional cues in the segmentation of French words in potential liaison contexts.