Journals

Morpho-phonology

  • Xu, L., Solá-Llonch, E., Wang, H., & Sundara, M. (2024). A meta-analytic review of morphological priming in Semitic languages. Mental Lexicon, doi.org/10.1075/ml.00024.xu
  • Sundara, M., Zhou, Z.L., Breiss, C., Katsuda, H., & Steffman, J. (2022). Infants’ developing sensitivity to native language phonotactics: A meta-analysis. Cognition, 221, 104993
  • Kim, Y. J., & Sundara, M. (2021). 6-month-olds are sensitive to English morphology. Developmental Science, e13089. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13089
  • Sundara, M., White, J., Kim, Y.J. & Chong, A.J. (2021) Stem similarity modulates infants’ acquisition of phonological alternations. Cognition, 209, 104573 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104573
  • Sundara, M. (2018). Why do children pay more attention to grammatical morphemes at the ends of sentences? Journal of Child Language, 45(3), 703-716. doi.org/10.1017/S0305000917000356
  • White, J., & Sundara, M. (2014). Biased generalization of newly learned phonological alternations by 12-month-old infants. Cognition 133(1), 85-90.
  • Sundara, M., Demuth, K. & Kuhl, P.K. (2011). Sentence-position effects on children’s comprehension & production of English 3rd person singular –s. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 54, 55-71.
  • Song, J.Y., Sundara, M. & Demuth, K. (2009). Effects of phonology on children’s production of English 3rd person singular –s. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 52(3), 623-642.

Perceptual categories

  • Steffman, J., & Sundara, M. (2023b). Short-term exposure alters adult listeners’ perception of segmental phonotactics. JASA-Express Letters, 1;3(12): 125202. doi: 10.1121/10.0023900
  • Steffman, J., & Sundara, M. (2023a). Disentangling the role of biphone probability from neighborhood density in the perception of nonwords. Language & Speech, May 9; 238309231164982. doi: 10.1177/00238309231164982
  • Khlystova, E., Chong, A.J., & Sundara, M. (2023). Phonetic variation in English infant-directed speech: A large-scale corpus analysis. Journal of Phonetics, 100, 101267. doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2023.101267
  • Yang, M, & Sundara, M. (2019) Cue-shifting between acoustic cues: Evidence for directional asymmetry. Journal of Phonetics, 75, 27-42.
  • Sundara, M., Ngon, C., Skoruppa, K., Feldman, N. H., Onario, G. M., Morgan, J. L., & Peperkamp, S. (2018). Young infants’ discrimination of subtle phonetic contrasts. Cognition, 178, 57–66. doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.05.009
  • Sundara, M., & Scutellaro, A. (2011). Rhythmic distance between languages affects the development of speech perception in bilingual infants. Journal of Phonetics, 39(4), 505-513.
  • Sundara, M., Polka, L. & Molnar, M. (2008). Development of coronal stop perception: Bilingual infants keep pace with their monolingual peers. Cognition, 108(1), 232-242. doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2007.12.013
  • Sundara, M. & Polka, L. (2008). Discrimination of coronal stops by bilingual adults: The timing and nature of language interaction. Cognition, 106(1), 234-258.
  • Sundara, M., Polka, L. & Baum, S. (2006). Production of coronal stops by adult simultaneous bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9(1), 97-114.
  • Sundara, M., Polka, L. & Genesee, F. (2006). Language-experience facilitates discrimination of /d- ð/ in monolingual and bilingual acquisition of English. Cognition, 100(2), 369-388.
  • Sundara, M. (2005). Acoustic-phonetics of coronal stops: A cross-language study of Canadian English & Canadian French. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 118(2), 1026-1037.
  • Sundara, M., Namasivayam, A. K. & Chen, R. (2001). Observation-execution matching system for speech: A magnetic stimulation study. NeuroReport, 12(7), 1341-1344.
  • Polka, L., Colantonio, C. & Sundara, M. (2001). Cross-language perception of /d – ð/: Evidence for a new developmental pattern. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 109(5), 2190-2200.

Perception-Production links

  • Sundara, M., Ward, N., Conboy, B., & Kuhl, P. (2020). Exposure to a second language in infancy alters speech production. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 23(5), 978-991. doi:10.1017/S1366728919000853
  • Faytak, M., Liu, S. & Sundara, M. (2020). Nasal coda neutralization in Shanghai Mandarin: Articulatory and perceptual evidence. Laboratory Phonology, 11(1):23, 1-29.

Word Segmentation

  • Mateu, V.E & Sundara, M. (2024). Constraints on acceleration in bilingual development: Evidence from word segmentation by Spanish-learning infants. Behavioral Sciences
  • Mateu, V.E. & Sundara, M. (2022). Spanish input accelerates bilingual infants’ segmentation of English words. Cognition, 218, 104936 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104936
  • Sundara, M., Mateu, V.E. (2018). Lexical stress constrains English-learning infants’ segmentation in a non-native language. Cognition, 181, 105-116. doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.08.013.
  • Polka, L., Orena, A.J., Sundara, M., & Worrall, J. (2017). Segmenting words from fluent speech in infancy: Challenges and opportunities in the bilingual context. Developmental Science Jan;20(1). doi: 10.1111/desc.12419.
  • Hendrickson, K. & Sundara, M. (2017). Fourteen-month-olds’ decontextualized understanding of words for absent objects. Journal of Child Language, 44(1), 239-254.
  • Kim, Y.J., & Sundara, M. (2015). Segmentation of vowel-initial words is facilitated by function words. Journal of Child Language 42(4), 709-733.
  • Nazzi, T., Mersad, K., Sundara, M., Yakimova, G., & Polka, L. (2014). Early word segmentation in infants acquiring Parisian French: task dependent and dialect specific aspects. Journal of Child Language, 41(3), 600-633.
  • Polka, L., & Sundara, M. (2012). Word segmentation in monolingual infants acquiring Canadian-English and Canadian-French: Native language, cross-language and cross-dialect comparisons. Infancy, 17(2), 198-232.
  • Nazzi, T., Goyet, L., Sundara, M., & Polka, L. (2012). Différences linguistiques et dialectales dans la mise en place des procédures de segmentation de la parole. Enfance, 64(2), 127-146.

Prosody

  • Chong, A., & Vicenik, C. & Sundara, M. (2018). Intonation plays a role in language discrimination in infancy. Infancy, 23(6), 795-819.
  • Vicenik, C. & Sundara, M. (2013). The role of rhythm and intonation in language and dialect discrimination by adults. Journal of Phonetics, 41(5), 297-306.
  • Ilari, B., & Sundara, M. (2009). Music listening preferences in early life: Infants’ response to accompanied versus unaccompanied singing. Journal of Research in Music Education, 56, 357-369.

Manybabies

  • Byers-Heinlein, K., Tsui, A. S. M., Bergmann, C., Black, A. K., Brown, A., Carbajal, M. J., Durrant, S., Fennell, C. T., Fiévet, A.-C., Frank, M. C., Gampe, A., Gervain, J., Gonzalez-Gomez, N., Hamlin, J. K., Havron, N., Hernik, M., Kerr, S., Killam, H., Klassen, K., … Wermelinger, S. (2021). A multilab study of bilingual infants: Exploring the preference for infant-directed speech. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245920974622
  • The ManyBabies Consortium (2020). Quantifying sources of variability in infancy research using the infant-directed speech preference. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 3 (1), 24-52. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245919900809

Refereed Proceedings

  • Sundara, M., Molnar, M., Frota, S. (2015). The perception of boundary tones in infancy. Presented at ICPhS, Glasgow. Published In The Scottish Consortium for ICPhS 2015 (Ed.), Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Glasgow, UK: the University of Glasgow. Paper number 361, 1-4 retrieved from http://www.icphs2015.info/pdfs/Papers/ICPHS0361.pdf
  • Adani, F., Scutellaro, A., Sundara, M., & Hyams, N. (2015). Online processing of subject and object relative clauses in adults and infants. In Kern, S., Chenu, F., & Gayraud, F. (Eds.) The role of input in language acquisition. Cambridge Scholar Publishing.
  • Chong, A.J., & Sundara, M. (2016). Perceptual similarity modulates online compensation for phonological variation. In the Proceedings of the Annual Meeting on Phonology 2.
  • Chong, A.J., & Sundara, M. (2015). 18-month-olds compensate for a phonological alternation. Presented & Published in Grillo, E., & Jepson, K. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 39th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, 113-126.
  • Yu, K., Khan, S.D., & Sundara, M. (2014). Intonational phonology in Bengali and English infant-directed speech. In N. Campbell, D. Gibbon & D. Hirst (Eds.) Proceedings of Speech Prosody 7. 1130-1133
  • Sundara, M. (2003) Can adult phonetic categories be predicted from statistical distribution alone? Presented at ICPhS, Barcelona Aug 3-9th. Published in Solé, M. J., Recasens, D., Romero, J. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 2329-2332.
  • Polka, L. & Sundara, M. (2003) Word segmentation in monolingual and bilingual infant learners of English and French. Presented at ICPhS, Barcelona Aug 3-9th. Published in Solé, M. J., Recasens, D., Romero, J. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 1021-1024.
  • Aravind, N., Saoji, A., & Sundara, M. (1998) Frequency specificity of the medial efferent system in Pardasani, K. R. (Ed.) Advances in Biomechanics: Proceedings of the Sixth National Conference, MACT Press, Bhopal, 231-236.

Other

  • May 2012. Polka, L., Colantonio, C., & Sundara, M. (2001) Featured in Babies and Sound Perception. The Economist retrieved from: http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2012/05/language-learning?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/babiesandsoundperception
  • Ward, N., & Sundara, M. (2011). Lay language paper for 162nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, “Is infants’ native language preference in the visual modality guided by speech rhythm?”
  • Yu, K.M., Khan, S.D., Cristia, A., Liu, H.-M., Sundara, M. (2011). The joint purpose of pitch patterns in motherese: drawing attention and conveying language structure. ASA Lay Language Papers 162nd Acoustical Society of America Meeting.
  • Ward, N., & Sundara, M. (2009). Interviewed for column titled “Babble of baby reveals language skills”. Retrieved from http://www.physorg.com/news176458764.html
  • Ward, N., & Sundara, M. (2009). Lay language paper for 158th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, “Effects of Short-Term Exposure to Spanish on the Babbling of English-Learning Infants”. Retrieved from http://www.acoustics.org/press/158th/ward.htm
  • Sundara, M. (2009). Interviewed for column titled “So fascinating to watch” in UCLA College Report
  • Polka, L., & Sundara, M. (2003). Interviewed for column titled “Baby Talk” in Today’s Parent. Retrieved from http://www.todaysparent.com/baby/behaviordevelopment/article.jsp?content=20030905_103140_2484&page=1
  • Sundara, M. (2001) From lesion studies to Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: A journey. ASHA-Kiran: Newsletter for the Asian-Indian Caucus of American Speech-Language & Hearing Association

Conference Presentations

  • Khlystova, E. & Sundara, M. (2023). The lexical representation of coda /t/ by 14-month-olds. 185th Meeting of the Acoustic Society of America, Sydney
  • Solá-Llonch, E. & Sundara, M. (2023). Infants’ initial sensitivity to vowel harmony is experience independent. Oral presentation at 48th Boston University Conference on Language Development, [BUCLD 48].
  • Sundara, M. & Johnson, M. (2023). Discovering inflectional and derivational suffixes in infancy. Poster presentation at 48th Boston University Conference on Language Development, [BUCLD 48].
  • Sundara, M. (2022). Infants bootstrap grammatical categories from morphological suffixes. Oral presentation at 47th Boston University Conference on Language Development, [BUCLD 47].
  • Katsuda, H., & Sundara, M. (2022). Infants’ developing sensitivity to vowel phonotactic constraints in English. Poster presentation at the 47th Boston University Conference on Language Development, [BUCLD 47].
  • Jo, J., Breiss, C., & Sundara, M. (2022). Verb segmentation in infancy as a predictor of language outcomes in 3-year-olds. Oral presentation at the Biennial Meeting of the International Congress of Infant Studies, Ottawa.
  • Katsuda, H., & Sundara, M. (2022). 5-month-olds are not (yet) sensitive to vowel phonotactic constraints in English. Poster presentation at the Biennial Meeting of the International Congress of Infant Studies, Ottawa.
  • Narkar, J., Khlystova, E., Mayer, C., Aly, A.M., Kim, J. Y., & Sundara, M. (2022). Evaluating the learnability of vowel categories from infant-directed speech. Poster Presentation at the 182nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Denver, CO
  • Narkar, J., & Sundara, M. (2022). The four-way voicing distinction in Bengali infant-directed speech. Poster presentation at the 182nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Denver, CO
  • Khlystova, E., Chong, A.J., & Sundara, M. (2021). Quantifying phonetic variation: A large-scale corpus analysis of coronals segments in English infant-directed speech. Poster presentation at the 181st Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Seattle, WA (Abstract in JASA)
  • Khlystova, E., Chong, A.J., & Sundara, M. (2021). Phonetic variation in coronals in English infant-directed speech: A large-scale corpus analysis. Poster presentation at the 46th Boston University Conference on Language Development [BUCLD 46]. November 2021.
  • Sundara, M., & Breiss, C. (2020). Infants are sensitive to phonotactic patterns in their native language at 5-months. Oral Presentation at the 45th Boston University Conference on Language Development [BUCLD 45]. November 2020.
  • Suyuan, L., Faytak, M. & Sundara, M. (2020). Production and perception of the coda nasals in Shanghai Mandarin. Labphon17, Vancouver, BC
  • Sundara, M., & Breiss, C. (2020). 5-month-olds are sensitive to phonotactic patterns in their native language. Labphon17, Vancouver, BC
  • Sundara, M., & Breiss, C. (2020). 5-month-olds are sensitive to native language phonotactics. International Congress of Infant Studies, Glasgow, Scotland.Sundara, M. & Mayer, C. (2018) Modeling developmental changes in infants’ discrimination of English vowels. Poster presented at the 43rd Boston University Conference on Language Development
  • Steffman, J., & Sundara, M. (2019). Biphone probability and neighborhood density effects on phonetic categorization. Poster at the 178th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, San Diego, CA (Abstract in JASA)
  • Sundara, M. & Mateu, V.E. (2019). Dual language input facilitates English learning infants’ word segmentation abilities. Oral Presentation at the 12th meeting of the International Symposium on Bilingualism, Edmonton, Alberta.
  • Sundara, M., Mayer, C., (2018). Modeling developmental changes in infants’ discrimination of English vowels. Poster presentation at the International Conference on Infant Studies, Philadelphia
  • Lin, I., Chong, A.J., Sundara, M. (2018). The extent of variation in the production of coronals in English infant-directed speech. Poster at LabPhon 16, Lisbon
  • Sundara, M., Mayer, C., (2017). Does the developing lexicon constrain infants’ discrimination of English vowels? Poster at the 174th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, New Orleans (Abstract in JASA)
  • Aly, A., Jacobson, S., Sundara, M. (2016). Levels of prominence in Spanish infant-directed speech. Poster at the 5th Joint Meeting Acoustical Society of America and Acoustical Society of Japan Honolulu, Hawaii (Abstract in JASA)
  • Sundara, M., Molnar, M., & Frota, S. (2016). English learning infants’ perception of boundary tones. Poster at the 5th Joint Meeting Acoustical Society of America and Acoustical Society of Japan Honolulu, Hawaii (Abstract in JASA)
  • Sundara, M., Molnar, M., & Frota, S. (2016). The perception of boundary tones in infancy across languages. Oral presentation at the International Conference on Infant Studies, New Orleans
  • Kim, Y.J., & Sundara, M. (2015). Walk is in walks but not walked: 6-mo-olds processing of inflected forms. Presented at the American International Morphology Meeting 3, Amherst
  • Sundara, M., Molnar, M., & Frota, S. (2015). When infants get the question: The development of boundary tone perception. Workshop on Infant Language Development, Stockholm
  • Mateu, V.E. & Sundara, M. (2015). Cross-linguistic transfer of word segmentation abilities in bilingual infants. Workshop on Infant Language Development, Stockholm
  • White, J., Kim, Y., Chong, A.J., & Sundara, M. (2015). Phonetic similarity as a bias in infant phonological learning. Workshop on “Universal biases on phonological acquisition and processing” Annual Meeting of the German Society of Linguistics (Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft), University of Liepzig
  • Kim, Y.J., & Sundara, M. (2014). 6-month-olds can segment and decompose morphologically-complex words. Poster at the Boston University Conference on Language Development
  • Sundara, M., Ngon, C., Skoruppa, K., Feldman, N.H., Onario, G.M., Morgan, J.L., Peperkamp, S. (2014) Young infants’ discrimination of subtle phonetic contrasts. Poster at the Boston University Conference on Language Development
  • White, J., Sundara, M., Kim, Y.J., Chong, A.J. (2014). Infant learning of phonological alternations is biased by phonetic similarity. Poster at the Workshop on Learning Biases in Natural and Artificial Language Acquisition at the Annual meeting of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain
  • Chong, A.J., & Sundara, M. (2014). Tapping in American English: Context matters. Poster at LabPhon14, Tokyo, July 25-27, 2014
  • Sundara, M., Kim, Y.J., White, J., & Chong, A.J. (2013). There is no pat in patting: Acquisition of phonological alternations by English-learning 12-mo-olds. Presentation at the Boston University Conference on Language Development
  • Sundara, M. & Mateu, V.E. (2013). Non-native rhythm does not block word segmentation in infants. Workshop on Infant Language Development, San Sebastian, Spain
  • Chong, A.J., & Sundara, M. (2013). Allophonic variation and word recognition in 1.5 year-old children. Linguistics Society of America Workshop “Variation in the Acquisition of Sound Systems”, Ann Arbor, Michigan
  • Vogt, H., Zuraw, K., & Sundara, M., (2013). Acquisition of /r/, /l/ and /w/ by monolingual English-speaking children. Berkeley Interdisciplinary Research Conference
  • White, J., & Sundara, M. (2012). Infant biases in the learning of phonological alternations. Presentation at the Boston University Conference on Language Development
  • Hicks, J., & Sundara, M. (2012). Children with SLI produce 3rd singular –s constrained by phonology. Poster at the Annual Convention of American Speech-Language and Hearing Association, Atlanta
  • Ward, N., & Sundara, M. (2012). The role of visual cues in imitating an unfamiliar sound. International Symposium on Imitation and Convergence in Speech, Aix-en-Provence, France
  • Adani, F., Scutellaro, A., Sundara, M., & Hyams, N. (2012). Online processing of subject and object relative clauses by adults and infants. 3rd Conference on Early Language Acquisition, Lyon, France
  • Hicks, J., & Sundara, M. (2012). Systematicity in the production of grammatical morphemes by children with SLI Southern California Undergraduate Linguistics Conference, UCLA
  • Kim, Y.J., & Sundara, M. (2012). 11-month-olds use function words to segment vowel-initial words. Poster at the International Conference on Infant Studies Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • Ward, N., & Sundara, M. (2012). The development and basis of visual language preference in infancy. Poster at the International Conference on Infant Studies Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • Jacobson, S., Ward, N., & Sundara, M. (2011) Acoustic correlates of stress in Spanish infant-directed speech. Poster at the Undergraduate Research Symposium, 162nd meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, San Diego, CA (Abstract in JASA, 130, 2428)
  • Ward, N., & Sundara, M. (2011). Effects of language exposure on prosodic differences in infant babbling. Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition, Thessaloniki
  • Yu, K., Khan, S.D., & Sundara, M. (2011). A cross-linguistic investigation of information structure in infant-directed speech. Experimental and Theoretical Advances in Prosody 2, Montreal
  • Vicenik, C. & Sundara, M. (2011). Weighting of prosodic cues in language discrimination by infants and adults. 162nd meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, special session on “Speech Rhythm in Production, Perception and Acquisition”, San Diego, CA (Abstract in JASA, 130, 2567)
  • Ward, N., & Sundara, M. (2011). Is infants’ native language preference in the visual modality guided by speech rhythm? 162nd meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, special session on “Speech Rhythm in Production, Perception and Acquisition”, San Diego, CA (Abstract in JASA, 130, 2566)
  • Hendrickson, K., & Sundara, M. (2010). The development of referential understanding. Poster at the 2nd Pan American / Iberian Meeting on Acoustics, Cancun (Abstract in JASA, 128(4), 2350)
  • Kim, Y.J., & Sundara, M. (2010). Function words facilitate word segmentation. Poster at the 2nd Pan American / Iberian Meeting on Acoustics, Cancun (Abstract in JASA, 128(4), 2350)
  • Thatte, V., & Sundara, M. (2010). 4.5-month-olds’ phonotactic knowledge. Poster at the 2nd Pan American / Iberian Meeting on Acoustics, Cancun (Abstract in JASA, 128(4), 2350)
  • Ward, N., & Sundara, M. (2010). Development of native language preference in the visual modality. Poster at the 2nd Pan American / Iberian Meeting on Acoustics, Cancun (Abstract in JASA, 128(4), 2350; Awarded the Best Student Paper award in Speech Communication)
  • White, J., & Sundara, M. (2010). Experimental evidence for phoneme-level inhibition in spoken word recognition. Poster at the 2nd Pan American / Iberian Meeting on Acoustics, Cancun (Abstract in JASA, 128(4), 2322)
  • Kim, Y.J., & Sundara, M. (2010). The role of function words in the development of word segmentation. Poster at the Boston University Conference on Language Development
  • Ward, N., Sundara, M., Conboy, B., & Kuhl, P.K. (2010). Short-term exposure to a second language produces language-specific effects in babbling. Poster at the Boston University Conference on Language Development (withdrawn due to personal reasons)
  • Adani, F., Scutellaro, A., Sundara, M., & Hyams, N. (2010). What do infants know about syntax? The case of relative clauses. Poster at the International Conference on Infant Studies, Baltimore
  • Vicenik, C., Sundara, M., Kitamura, C., & Nazzi, T. (2010). Language discrimination by infants: Discriminating within the native language rhythm class. Poster at the International Conference on Infant Studies, Baltimore
  • Ward, N., Sundara, M., Conboy, B. & Kuhl, P.K. (2009). Consequences of short-term language exposure in infancy on babbling. Poster at the 158th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, San Antonio (Abstract in JASA, 126(4), 2311; Awarded second prize for the Best Student Paper in Speech Communication)
  • Sundara, M., & Vicenik, C. (2009). Language and dialect discrimination by five-month-olds. Poster at the 158th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, San Antonio (Abstract in JASA, 126(4), 2314)
  • Vicenik, C. & Sundara, M. (2009). Role of rhythmic and intonational cues in language discrimination. Poster at the 2nd Acoustical Society of America workshop on “Cross-language speech perception and variations in linguistic experience”, Portland (Abstract in JASA, 125(4), 2764)
  • Mersad, K., Polka, L., Sundara, M. & Nazzi, T. (2009). Early prosodic- and transitional probabilities-based speech segmentation abilities in French-learning infants. Presentation at the Society for Research on Child Development
  • Sundara, M. (2009). How are speech sound categories acquired in bilingual first language acquisition? 2nd ASA workshop on “Cross-language speech perception and variations in linguistic experience” Portland, OR (Abstract in JASA, 125(4), 2770)
  • Sundara, M., Demuth, K. & Kuhl, P.K. (2008). Positional effects on 2-year-olds’ comprehension and production of 3rd person singular –s. Poster at the Boston University Conference on Language Development
  • Nazzi, T., Mersad, K., Iakimova, G., Sundara, M. & Polka, L. (2008). Differences in the development of speech segmentation abilities in two French dialects. Presentation at the International Association for the Society of Child Language, Edinburgh
  • Sundara, M., Kitamura, C. & Nazzi, T. (2008). Behavioral and physiological measures of language preference. Poster at Acoustics’08, the 155th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Paris (Abstract in JASA, 123(5), 3326)
  • Vicenik, C. & Sundara, M. (2008). Role of segmental and intonational cues in dialect discrimination. Poster at Acoustics’08, the 155th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Paris (Abstract in JASA, 123(5), 3883)
  • Polka, L., Proulx, J. & Sundara, M. (2008). Speech segmentation in monolingual and bilingual infants acquiring Canadian English and Canadian French. Poster at Acoustics’08, the 155th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Paris (Abstract in JASA, 123(5), 3882)
  • Nazzi, T., Mersad, K., Iakimova, G., Polka, L. & Sundara, M. (2008). Differences in the development of speech segmentation abilities in two French dialects. Poster at Acoustics’08, the 155th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Paris (Abstract in JASA, 123(5), 3075)
  • Polka, L., Proulx, J., Mersad, K., Iakimova, G., Sundara, M. & Nazzi, T. (2008). Speech segmentation in French-learning infants: Language-specific and dialect-specific patterns. Presentation at the International Conference on Infant Studies, Vancouver
  • Sundara, M. & Kuhl, P. K. (2006). Distinguishing voices: Are infants’ abilities affected by age or language experience? Poster at the 4th Joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America & the Acoustical Society of Japan, Honolulu (Abstract in JASA, 120(5), 3135)
  • Nazzi, T., Iakimova, G., Bertoncini, J., Polka, L., Sundara, M. & Girard, S. (2006). The development of word segmentation in infants acquiring different dialects of French. Poster at the Boston University Conference on Language Development
  • Sundara, M. & Kuhl, P. K. (2006). Role of language experience in infants’ discrimination of male and female voice. Presentation at the International Conference on Infant Studies, Kyoto
  • Iakimova, G., Nazzi, T., Sundara, M. & Polka, L. (2006). Emerging evidence of differences in segmentation abilities between Parisian and Canadian French infants. Poster at International Conference on Infant Studies, Kyoto
  • Polka, L., Molnar, M., Sundara, M., Valji, A. & Mattock, K. (2006). Speech perception development in bilingual infants. Conference on Language Acquisition & Bilingualism, Toronto
  • Polka, L., Molnar, M., Sundara, M., Valji, A. & Mattock, K. (2006). Le développement de la perception de la parole chez l’enfant bilingue. ACFAS, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal
  • Sundara, M., Klein, D. & Chen, J,-K. (2005). Neural correlates of phonetic and pitch categorization: Preliminary fMRI data. Poster at Society for Neuroscience, Washington
  • Cardillo, G., Kuhl, P. K. & Sundara, M. (2005). Relative saliency of pitch versus phonetic cues in infancy. Poster at 150th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Minneapolis (Abstract in JASA, 118(3), 1962)
  • Cardillo, G., Kuhl, P. K. & Sundara, M. (2005). Speech in music: Encoding pitch and segmental information in infant development. Poster at Society of Music Perception and Cognition (SMPC) Workshop, San Diego
  • Nazzi, T., Iakimova, G., Frédonie, S., Sundara, M. & Polka, L. (2005). Evaluating early speech segmentation in French: Effects of rhythmic types and speech mode. Presentation at the X International Congress for the Study of Child Language, Berlin
  • Nazzi, T., Iakimova, G., Frédonie, S., Sundara, M. & Polka, L. (2005). Exploring the development of speech segmentation abilities in French. Presentation at the conference on Emerging Language Abilities, Lyon
  • Sundara, M. & Polka, L. (2005). Phonetic categories of simultaneous bilingual adults: Insights from production and perception data. Part of colloquium on “Phonology of simultaneous bilinguals” at 5th International Symposium on Bilingualism, Barcelona
  • Sundara, M., Polka, L. & Molnar, M. (2004). Detail in phonetic representation in infancy: Effects of monolingual and dual language exposure. Presentation at the Boston University Conference on Language Development
  • Sundara, M., Polka, L. & Molnar, M. (2004). Detail in phonetic representation of 6-8 and 10-12 month-old French- and English-learning infants. Poster at International Conference on Infant Studies, Chicago
  • B., Polka, L. & Sundara, M. (2004). Infants’ listening preferences for a cappella and accompanied music. Poster at International Conference on Infant Studies, Chicago
  • Sundara, M. & Polka, L. (2004). Speech perception and production in bilinguals and monolinguals: convergent and divergent patterns in adulthood and development. 147th Meeting of Acoustical Society of America, New York (Abstract in JASA, 115(5), 2503)
  • Ilari, B., Polka, L. & Sundara, M. (2003). Preferences for a cappella and accompanied songs: A study with infant listeners. Presentation at the Meeting of European Society for Cognitive Sciences of Music, Hanover
  • Sundara, M. (2003). Bilingual first language acquisition: Organization of phonetic perception and production. Presentation 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism, Tempe
  • Sundara, M. & Polka, L. (2003). Bilingual segmentation skills in preverbal infants. Part of colloquium on “Studies of Pre-verbal dual language learners” at 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism, Tempe
  • Sundara, M. (2002). Does one plus one equal three in early simultaneous bilingual speech perception? Poster at 144rd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Cancun (Abstract in JASA, 112(5), 2388)
  • Polka, L. & Sundara, M. (2002). Is word segmentation in 7.5-month-olds shaped by native language rhythm? Presentation at Boston University Conference on Language Development
  • Sundara, M., Polka, L., Campisi, L., Genesee, F. & Marcoux, C. (2002). Learning to perceive English /d/ vs. /ð/: A comparison of French, English and English-French bilingual 4-year-olds. Poster at 143rd meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Pittsburgh (Abstract in JASA, 111(5), 2363)
  • Polka, L., Sundara, M. & Blue, S. (2002). The role of language experience in word segmentation: A comparison of English, French, and bilingual infants. Presentation at 143rd meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Pittsburgh (Abstract in JASA, 111(5), 2455)
  • Polka, L., Sundara, M. & Blue, S. (2002). Native-language, cross-language and dual-language word segmentation abilities: A comparison of English, French, and bilingual infants. Poster at International Conference on Infant Studies, Toronto
  • Sundara, M. & Polka L. (2001). Bilingual speech production: The case of simultaneous acquisition. Poster at 142nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Ft Lauderdale (Abstract in JASA, 110(5), 2685)
  • Polka, L., Sundara, M., Genesee, F., Marcoux, C. & Campisi, L. (2001). Perception of /d – ð/ in 4-year-old French, English & Bilingual children. Presentation at the Boston University Conference on Language Development
  • Polka, L., Colantonio, C. & Sundara, M. (2000). Cross-language perception of /d – ð/: Evidence for a new developmental pattern. Presentation at the Boston University Conference on Language Development
  • Namasivayam, A. K., Sundara, M. & Chen, R. (2000). Transcranial magnetic stimulation and motor facilitation of speech muscles. Poster at 139th Meeting of Acoustical Society of America, Atlanta (Abstract in JASA, 107(5), 2887)
  • Namasivayam, A. K., Sundara, M. & Savithri, S. R. (2000). Speech motor programming in persons who stutter. Presentation at the Tri-Joint Congress – Canadian Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists (Abstract in Proceedings of the Tri-Joint Congress- Canadian Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists, Supplement S75)
  • Sundara, M., Polka, L. & Zhao, V. (1999). Memory load manipulation and direction effects in vowel perception. Presentation at the Annual Convention of American Speech-Language and Hearing Association, San Francisco
  • Aravind, N., Saoji, A. & Sundara, M. (1998) Frequency specificity of the medial efferent system. Presentation at 6th National Conference on Bio-mechanics, Bhopal, India
  • Sundara, M. (1997). Perception of aspiration duration: Cross-language influences and ear differences. Poster at the International Symposium on Speech Perception by Non-native Listeners, Annual Convention of American Speech-Language and Hearing Association, Boston
  • Sundara, M. & Nataraja, N. P. (1997). Perception of prevoicing duration by native and non-native listeners. Poster at the International Symposium on Speech Perception by Non-native Listeners, Annual Convention of American Speech-Language and Hearing Association, Boston (Master’s Thesis submitted to University of Mysore, Mysore (Kar.) India)
  • Ananthapadmanabha, T.V. & Sundara, M. (1995). Study of quantal theory of speech production using area function and articulatory models. Poster at 130th meeting of Acoustical Society of America (Abstract in JASA, 98, 2965)

Invited Talks

  • Sundara, M. (2023). The emergence of grammatical class in infancy. Language Team Meeting, Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, École Normale Supérieure, Paris.
  • Sundara, M. (2023). How infants discover morphological suffixes and use them to discover phonemes: Experimental and Computational findings. Linguae Seminar, Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, École Normale Supérieure, Paris.
  • Sundara, M. (2023). What do infants know about permissible sound sequences of their native language. Plenary meeting, Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, École Normale Supérieure, Paris.
  • Sundara, M., (2023) Infant acquisition: From phonotactics, through morphology to word class. NYU Linguistics Colloquium.
  • Sundara, M. (2023). Acquisition of morphology and how it helps infants distinguish verbs from nouns. CogForum, Department of Psychology, UCLA.
  • Sundara, M. (2022). How infants learn English: From phonotactics, through morphology, to phonemes. Plenary at South Asian Forum on the Acquisition and Processing of Language, SAFAL 2022.
  • Sundara, M., (2022). The acquisition of phonotactics. University of Potsdam, Germany.
  • Sundara, M. (2022). Infant acquisition: From sound categories, through morphology and word class, to phonemes. Invited talk at LabPhon 18.
  • Sundara, M. (2022). When and how do babies learn the morphological suffixes of English? Lectures in Language and Linguistics, California State University, Bakersfield.
  • Sundara, M. (2021).The beginnings of morphological acquisition. McMaster University Cognitive Science of Language Series, Mar 8, 2021.
  • Sundara, M. (2017). Development of word segmentation in bilingual infants. Workshop to launch Bilingualism Matters at UC Riverside
  • Sundara, M. (2017). Acquisition of Verbs: A window to the mental representation of morphology and phonology, Cognitive Science Colloquium, University of Arizona
  • Sundara, M. (2016). Workshop on Infant Speech Perception in Annual Meeting on Phonology, USC.
  • Sundara M. (2014). Phonetic similarity biases phonological learning in infants. Berkeley Phonetics and Phonology Forum
  • Sundara M. (2014). Perceptual similarity constrains phonological learning in infants and adults. Colloquium speaker at the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Mysore
  • Sundara M. (2012). The interplay of distributional learning and prosody in developing word segmentation. Colloquium speaker at the of Linguistics, UC Berkeley
  • Sundara, M. (2012). Revisiting the role of prosody in early language acquisition. New directions in cognitive development: Workshop on Early Language Acquisition, Organized by Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, École Normale Supérieure, Paris
  • Sundara, M. (2012). The acquisition of 3rd person singular –s. Keynote speaker at the Southern California Undergraduate Linguistics Conference, UCLA
  • Sundara, M. (2011). Developing speech perception and production in infants exposed to two languages. 5th Heritage Language Summer Research Institute, UCLA
  • Sundara, M. (2011). Developing speech perception and production in infants exposed to two languages. Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland
  • Sundara, M. (2010). Patterns and mechanisms for the acquisition of speech sound categories in bilingual first language acquisition. Department of Speech-Language Pathology, University of Toronto, Toronto
  • Sundara M. (2010). The acquisition of speech sound categories in bilingual first language acquisition. Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders, Northwestern University, Chicago
  • Sundara, M. (2009). Factors affecting acquisition of speech sound categories in bilingual first language acquisition. Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, École Normale Supérieure, Paris
  • Sundara, M. (2009). Acquisition of speech sound categories in bilingual first language acquisition. Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Université Paris Descartes, Paris
  • Sundara, M. (2009). A window into the development of speech perception. BLING the UCLA Undergraduate Linguistics Students’ Association, May 13th, 2009
  • Sundara, M. (2008). How does phonetic perception develop in monolingual and bilingual first language acquisition? Department of Linguistics, UCSD, San Diego, Oct 13th.
  • Sundara, M. (2008). Perception and production of phonetic segments: A comparison of simultaneous bilinguals, L2 learners and heritage language learners. 2nd Heritage Language Summer Institute: Developing a Research Base for the Heritage Field, Harvard University, June 23-27.
  • Sundara, M. (2007). Developing phonetic perception in monolingual and bilingual first language acquisition. MARCS Auditory Laboratory, University of Western Sydney, Sydney
  • Sundara, M. (2007). Developing phonetic perception bilingual first language acquisition. Developmental Research Forum, Department of Psychology, UCLA
  • Sundara, M. (2006). Developing phonetic perception in monolingual and bilingual first language acquisition. Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon, Eugene
  • Sundara, M. (2004). Workshop on “Infant speech perception: Methods, Measures & Data”. All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore, India
  • Sundara, M. (2003). Predicting bilingual production & perception – How far can statistical distribution take us? Center for Mind, Brain and Learning, University of Washington, Seattle
  • Sundara, M. (2003). Phonetic production and perceptual categories in simultaneous bilingual adults. Linguistic Students Association, Concordia University, Montreal

Advising

Ph.D. thesis

  • Roy Becker (2010; Co-chair with Bruce Hayes). Acoustic typology of vowel inventories and Dispersion Theory. Presently – Staff Researcher, Digispeech, Herzliya, Israel
  • Chad Vicenik (2011). The role of intonation in language discrimination by infants and adults. Presently –Teacher High School Math & Physics, London
  • Victoria Thatte (2011; Co-chair with Bruce Hayes). Infant phonotactic learning. Recipient of the NSF Dissertation Award. Presently – Instructor, Grossmont College, San Diego.
  • Kristine Yu (2011; Co-chair with Ed Stabler). Learning tones from the speech signal. Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland; Presently – Assistant Professor (tenure-track), Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
  • Nancy Ward (2013). The role of modality and register in imitation by adults and children. Recipient of the NSF Dissertation Award
  • James White (2013; Co-chair with Bruce Hayes). Bias in phonological learning: Evidence from saltation. Presently – Lecturer (tenure-track), Department of Linguistics, University College London, UK
  • Yun Kim (2015). 6-month-olds’ segmentation and representation of morphologically complex words. Presently – Lecturer (tenure-track), Linguistics and Language and Cognition, Program in Linguistics, Emory University, Atlanta
  • Adam Chong (2017; Co-chair with Kie Zuraw). On the relationship between phonotactic and alternation learning. Lecturer (tenure-track), Department of Linguistics, Queen Mary University London, UK
  • Meng Yang (2019; Co-chair with Pat Keating). The perception of acoustic-phonetic cues and its impact on speech category learning. Presently – Associate Consultant Manager, BeMo Academic Consulting Inc, Toronto
  • Isabelle Lin (2019; Co-chair with Kie Zuraw). Functional load and learning phonological alternations. Presently at – L’Ecole Cesan, Paris.

MA thesis

  • Nancy Ward (2011); James White (2011); Yun Kim (2012); Adam Chong (2013); Meng Yang (co-chair with Pat Keating, 2016); Isabelle Lin (co-chair with Kie Zuraw, 2016); Z.L. Zhou (co-chair with Pat Keating, 2019); Ekaterina Khlystova (2021)

Editorial Service

Associate Editor, Journal of Acoustical Society of America, 2016-2022
Member of the Editorial Board, Journal of South Asian Linguistics, 2016-
Member of the Editorial Board, Language Acquisition, 2011-
Associate Editor, Journal of Speech Language & Hearing Research, 2011-2015