How do Spanish-learning infants discover morphological suffixes? (UBC Talk)

Suffixes like English -s, -ed and -ing, and Spanish -a and -o are the basic building blocks of syntax. In this talk, I will first identify the mechanism by which English-learning infants find suffixes. To do so, I will use modeling to evaluate various mechanisms for affix discovery against the developmental trajectory uncovered in experiments with English-learning infants. Then, in two experiments I will test the predictions of the successful model on infants learning Spanish. I will end by discussing the essential properties of a successful affix discovery mechanism, and its implications for acquisition of other languages.