Sound structure in human language

Languages differ in their phonology, i.e. in the sounds they use (French has nasal vowels, English doesn’t), in the restrictions upon the sequencing of these sounds within syllables and words (in French, words cannot start with the sequence /tl/; in English, /h/ can only occur syllable-initially), and in the processes that modify these sounds across words (in English, /t/ can be changed into /p/: “sweet boy” can be pronounced as “sweep boy”; in French, it can be changed into /d/: “botte verte” can be pronounced as “bodde verte”). Adults have implicit knowledge of all these aspects of their language. Depending upon the student’s background and research interests, several experimental internships can be proposed in three areas:

• infants 'and toddlers' acquisition of their native language’s phonology
• limits on adults' capacities to learn the phonology of a second language
• social and cognitive factors that influence phonological processing in adults