Simultaneous French–German bilinguals’ phonotactic knowledge and processing: Evidence from a well-formedness judgment and a lexical decision task

Abstract

Monolinguals have detailed knowledge of the phonotactic properties of their native language and apply such knowledge during speech processing. However, less is known about bilinguals’ phonotactic knowledge and processing, notably in simultaneous bilinguals. Here, we investigated in two web-based experiments whether simultaneous French/German bilinguals show knowledge of their two languages’ phonotactics (Experiment 1: well-formedness judgment task) and whether they apply such knowledge during speech processing (Experiment 2: lexical decision task). We compared the bilinguals to two groups of monolingually-raised French- and German-speaking adults. Analyses revealed that the bilinguals’ phonotactic knowledge of their two languages is similar to that of the monolinguals, while they differ from the monolinguals in processing, showing reduced phonotactic sensitivity, possibly because of the co-activation of both languages’ systems. These findings contribute to our understanding of how phonotactic properties are represented and used in simultaneous bilinguals’ speech processing.