Phonotactics and its acquisition, representation, and use

One of the most challenging tasks for language-learning infants and second language (L2)-learning adults is to segment the continuous stream of speech that surrounds them, and, following this, to acquire a lexicon. Both speech segmentation and lexical acquisition are known to be facilitated by phonotactics, i.e., language-specific restrictions on how phonemes may combine. This dissertation addresses questions regarding the representation and acquisition of such phonotactic knowledge in a native language and an L2.