Bilinguals’ advantages in executive function: Learning phonotactics and alternation

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between phonotactics and alternation in phonological acquisition and whether bilingual speakers have an advantage in learning alternation patterns not fully supported by phonotactics. Phonotactics and alternation are distinct phonological patterns: Phonotactic knowledge comprising static generalizations about the lexicon, while alternation knowledge concerns context-sensitive changes in morphemes. However, phonotactics can serve as a motivating factor for alternation. This study tests the learning of alternation patterns with full and partial phonotactic support, incorporating bilingualism as a variable. Based on the known benefits of bilingualism in executive function and multitasking, we predict that bilinguals outperform monolinguals in handling multiple independent phonological pattern learning tasks simultaneously, such as learning phonotactics and alternation. The results show that bilingual participants’ learning of the alternation patterns is comparable, regardless of their consistency with stem-internal phonotactic patterns, while the monolinguals only successfully acquire the alternation pattern with full phonotactic support. The findings suggest that bilingualism may confer advantages in handling phonotactics and alternation learning tasks simultaneously.