Converging Evidence for Abstract Phonological Knowledge in Speech Processing

phonological knowledge plays a role in all aspects of speech processing. This is true even of those processing realms which may seem to form natural sources of evidence for memory-based effects. Thus we can see that abstractions are involved in many kinds of processing where differences between talkers are at issue. Likewise, though phonological structures are language-specific and hence not inborn, whereby language acquisition needs speech input to set it going, it also appears that construction of abstract phonological generalisations across this input must form part of linguistic processing even in the earliest months of life. Acknowledgments Thanks to all collaborators listed in the References below, as well as to the Max Planck Society, NWO Spinoza and the Australian Research Council for financial support.