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Publication Multi-modal cross-linguistic perception of Mandarin tones in clear speech(Frontiers, 2023-09-27) Zeng, Yuyu; Leung, Keith K. W.; Jongman, Allard; Sereno, Joan A.; Wang, YueClearly enunciated speech (relative to conversational, plain speech) involves articulatory and acoustic modifications that enhance auditory–visual (AV) segmental intelligibility. However, little research has explored clear-speech effects on the perception of suprasegmental properties such as lexical tone, particularly involving visual (facial) perception. Since tone production does not primarily rely on vocal tract configurations, tones may be less visually distinctive. Questions thus arise as to whether clear speech can enhance visual tone intelligibility, and if so, whether any intelligibility gain can be attributable to tone-specific category-enhancing (code-based) clear-speech cues or tone-general saliency-enhancing (signal-based) cues. The present study addresses these questions by examining the identification of clear and plain Mandarin tones with visual-only, auditory-only, and AV input modalities by native (Mandarin) and nonnative (English) perceivers. Results show that code-based visual and acoustic clear tone modifications, although limited, affect both native and nonnative intelligibility, with category-enhancing cues increasing intelligibility and category-blurring cues decreasing intelligibility. In contrast, signal-based cues, which are extensively available, do not benefit native intelligibility, although they contribute to nonnative intelligibility gain. These findings demonstrate that linguistically relevant visual tonal cues are existent. In clear speech, such tone category-enhancing cues are incorporated with saliency-enhancing cues across AV modalities for intelligibility improvements.Publication Testing a computational model of causative overgeneralizations: Child judgment and production data from English, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese and K’iche’(Taylor and Francis, 2022-01-12) Ambridge, Ben; Doherty, Laura; Maitreyee, Ramya; Tatsumi, Tomoko; Zicherman, Shira; Pedro, Pedro Mateo; Kawakami, Ayuno; Bidgood, Amy; Pye, Clifton; Narasimhan, Bhuvana; Arnon, Inbal; Bekman, Dani; Efrati, Amir; Pixabaj, Sindy Fabiola Can; Mendoza, Margarita Julajuj; Samanta, Soumitra; Campbell, Seth; McCauley, Stewart; Berman, Ruth; Fukumura, Kumiko; Marroquín Pelíz, MarioHow do language learners avoid the production of verb argument structure overgeneralization errors ( *The clown laughed the man c.f. The clown made the man laugh), while retaining the ability to apply such generalizations productively when appropriate? This question has long been seen as one that is both particularly central to acquisition research and particularly challenging. Focussing on causative overgeneralization errors of this type, a previous study reported a computational model that learns, on the basis of corpus data and human-derived verb-semantic-feature ratings, to predict adults’ by-verb preferences for less- versus more-transparent causative forms (e.g., * The clown laughed the man vs The clown made the man laugh) across English, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese and K’iche Mayan. Here, we tested the ability of this model (and an expanded version with multiple hidden layers) to explain binary grammaticality judgment data from children aged 4;0-5;0, and elicited-production data from children aged 4;0-5;0 and 5;6-6;6 ( N=48 per language). In general, the model successfully simulated both children’s judgment and production data, with correlations of r=0.5-0.6 and r=0.75-0.85, respectively, and also generalized to unseen verbs. Importantly, learners of all five languages showed some evidence of making the types of overgeneralization errors – in both judgments and production – previously observed in naturalistic studies of English (e.g., *I’m dancing it). Together with previous findings, the present study demonstrates that a simple learning model can explain (a) adults’ continuous judgment data, (b) children’s binary judgment data and (c) children’s production data (with no training of these datasets), and therefore constitutes a plausible mechanistic account of the acquisition of verbs’ argument structure restrictions.Publication Perception and production of Mandarin-Accented English: The effect of degree of Accentedness on the Interlanguage Speech Intelligibility Benefit for Listeners (ISIB-L) and Talkers (ISIB-T)(Elsevier, 2023-06-17) Fishero, Sheyenne; Sereno, Joan A.; Jongman, AllardPrevious research on the Interlanguage Speech Intelligibility Benefit (ISIB) indicates nonnative listeners may have an advantage at understanding nonnative speech of talkers with the same first language (L1) due to shared interlanguage knowledge. The present study offers a comprehensive analysis of various factors that may modulate this advantage, including the proficiency of both the listeners and the talkers, the mapping of phonemes between the L1 and second language (L2), and the acoustic properties of the phones. Accuracy scores on a lexical decision task were used to investigate both native English listeners’ and native Mandarin learners’ of English perception of native English and Mandarin-accented English speech. Results show clear ISIB-L and ISIB-T effects and demonstrate the dynamic nature of ISIB effects, with both being modulated by speaker and listener proficiency. More striking ISIB effects typically occur at the most extreme ends of accentedness. Additionally, an advantage for common-phoneme over unique-phoneme words in nonnative speech was observed. While nonnative productions of common-phoneme words are more accurate than those of unique-phoneme words, for the most accented productions, nonnative listeners are faster to respond to these unique, often mispronounced, productions. The nonnative listener advantage at perceiving nonnative speech depends on various factors, including listener proficiency, speaker proficiency, phoneme characteristics, and the acoustics of specific speech tokens.Publication Plain-to-clear speech video conversion for enhanced intelligibility(Springer, 2023-01-28) Sachdeva, Shubam; Ruan, Haoyao; Hamarneh, Ghassan; Behne, Dawn M.; Jongman, Allard; Sereno, Joan A.; Wang, YueClearly articulated speech, relative to plain-style speech, has been shown to improve intelligibility. We examine if visible speech cues in video only can be systematically modified to enhance clear-speech visual features and improve intelligibility. We extract clear-speech visual features of English words varying in vowels produced by multiple male and female talkers. Via a frame-by-frame image-warping based video generation method with a controllable parameter (displacement factor), we apply the extracted clear-speech visual features to videos of plain speech to synthesize clear speech videos. We evaluate the generated videos using a robust, state of the art AI Lip Reader as well as human intelligibility testing. The contributions of this study are: (1) we successfully extract relevant visual cues for video modifications across speech styles, and have achieved enhanced intelligibility for AI; (2) this work suggests that universal talker-independent clear-speech features may be utilized to modify any talker’s visual speech style; (3) we introduce “displacement factor” as a way of systematically scaling the magnitude of displacement modifications between speech styles; and (4) the high definition generated videos make them ideal candidates for human-centric intelligibility and perceptual training studies.Publication Obituary: Wendy Herd (1973-2020)(Acoustical Society of America, 2020) Jongman, Allard; Sereno, Joan A.Publication The Effect of Lexicality, Frequency, and Markedness on Mandarin Tonal Categorization(Frontiers Media, 2022-07-22) Yang, Tzu-Hsuan; Jin, Shao-Jie; Lu, Yu-AnWhile the Ganong lexicality effect has been observed for phonemic and tonal categorization, the effects of frequency and markedness are less clear, especially in terms of tonal categorization. In this study, we use Mandarin Chinese to investigate the effects of lexicality, tone frequency and markedness. We examined Mandarin speakers’ tonal categorization of tokens on all possible tonal continua with one end being a word and the other being a tonotactic gap (i.e., an unattested syllable-tone combination). The results of a forced-choice identification experiment showed a general bias against the gap endpoints, with the noted exception of continua involving T4 (X51), the most frequent lexical tone. Specifically, when T4 served as the gap endpoint, no obvious bias against it was observed regardless of its lexical status. Moreover, on the T3–T4 continua, there was an apparent bias against T3 (X214), the tone with the most complex contour, again, regardless of lexicality, suggesting a strong markedness effect. Taken together, the results of this study show the individual effects of lexicality, tone frequency and markedness, as well as their interactions, which contribute to our understanding of tonal categorization in relation to lexical statistics (tone frequency) and phonology (markedness).Publication The Effect of Instructed Second Language Learning on the Acoustic Properties of First Language Speech(MDPI, 2020-10-26) Dmitrieva, Olga; Jongman, Allard; Sereno, Joan A.This paper reports on a comprehensive phonetic study of American classroom learners of Russian, investigating the influence of the second language (L2) on the first language (L1). Russian and English productions of 20 learners were compared to 18 English monolingual controls focusing on the acoustics of word-initial and word-final voicing. The results demonstrate that learners’ Russian was acoustically different from their English, with shorter voice onset times (VOTs) in [−voice] stops, longer prevoicing in [+voice] stops, more [−voice] stops with short lag VOTs and more [+voice] stops with prevoicing, indicating a degree of successful L2 pronunciation learning. Crucially, learners also demonstrated an L1 phonetic change compared to monolingual English speakers. Specifically, the VOT of learners’ initial English voiceless stops was shortened, indicating assimilation with Russian, while the frequency of prevoicing in learners’ English was decreased, indicating dissimilation with Russian. Word-final, the duration of preceding vowels, stop closures, frication, and voicing during consonantal constriction all demonstrated drift towards Russian norms of word-final voicing neutralization. The study confirms that L2-driven phonetic changes in L1 are possible even in L1-immersed classroom language learners, challenging the role of reduced L1 use and highlighting the plasticity of the L1 phonetic system.Publication Voice Reversals and Syntactic Structure: Evidence from Hittite(Open Library of Humanities, 2020-12-21) Yates, Anthony D.; Gluckman, JohnWe address the relationship between syntactic valency and voice morphology in Hittite (Anatolian, Indo-European), focusing on cases where active syntax is expressed using non-active morphology, and vice versa. We argue that apparent “mismatches” between syntax and morphology are strictly a morphological rather than a syntactic phenomenon (contra Alexiadou et al. 2015; Grestenberger 2018). Our study highlights voice “reversals” — i.e., cases in which the expected mismatch disappears and morphological and syntactic valency match. We determine that such reversals correlate with morphological locality, and cannot be derived by hierarchical factors. Our findings provide a novel argument for a uniform syntactic structure of voice (Wood 2015; Wood & Marantz 2018).Publication Detecting integration of top-down information using the mismatch negativity: Preliminary evidence from phoneme restoration(University of Kansas Libraries, 2019) Redmon, Charles; Zeng, Yuyu; Kidwai, Yuhi; Yang, Xiao; Wilson, Delaney; Fiorentino, RobertThe current study utilizes mismatch negativity in the phenomenon of phoneme restoration to investigate the critical debate regarding the integration of top down (lexical) and bottom up (acoustic) processing in spoken word recognition. Phoneme restoration, which occurs when phonemes missing from a speech signal are restored by the brain and may appear to be heard, was examined in a multi-standard oddball paradigm. Participants heard stimuli while watching a quiet animated film. Stimuli were divided into word and non- word conditions, with noise added to some stimuli to make them ambiguous. The many-to-one ratio of standards to deviants for generation of mismatch negativity (MMN) was achieved only if the brain could recover the missing phoneme in the ambiguous, noise-spliced stimuli. Both word and nonword conditions were compared to verify that an elicited MMN among words was contingent on involvement of the lexicon in the grouping of standards, and not some more general cognitive grouping procedure. Results from seven participants show preliminary support for the predicted effect: i.e., mismatch negativity for words but not for nonwords. This effect is contingent on phoneme restoration, and thus is consistent with recent literature suggesting that MMN is sensitive to higher information structures such as the mental lexicon. Keywords: phoneme restoration, MMN, lexical access, top-down information.Publication A qualitative study of how self-harm starts and continues among Chinese adolescents(Cambridge University Press, 2020-12-17) Chen, Runsen; Wang, Yuanyuan; Liu, Li; Lu, Li; Wilson, Amanda; Gong, Shuxiao; Zhu, Yingrong; Sheng, Caihua; Zeng, Ying; Li, Yamin; Ou, JianjunBackground It is essential to investigate the experiences behind why adolescents start and continue to self-harm in order to develop targeted treatment and prevent future self-harming behaviours. Aims The aims of this study are to understand the motivations for initiating and repeating nonfatal self-harm, the different methods used between first-time and repeated self-harm and the reasons that adolescents do not seek help from health services. Methods Adolescents with repeated nonfatal self-harm experiences were recruited to participate in individual, semi-structured qualitative interviews. The interviews were analysed with interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results We found that nonfatal self-harm among adolescents occurred comparatively early and was often triggered by specific reasons. However, the subsequent nonfatal self-harm could be causeless, with repeated self-harm becoming a maladaptive coping strategy to handle daily pressure and negative emotions. The choice of tools used was related to the ease of accessibility, the life-threatening risk and the size of the scars. Adolescents often concealed their scars on purpose, which made early identification insufficient. Peer influence, such as online chat groups encouraging self-harm by discussing and sharing self-harm pictures, could also lead to increased self-harm. The results also included participants’ opinions on how to stop nonfatal self-harm and their dissatisfaction with the current healthcare services. Conclusions The current study provides important implications both for early identification and interventions for adolescents who engage in repeated nonfatal self-harm, and for individualising treatment planning that benefits them. It is also worthwhile to further investigate how peer influence and social media may affect self-harm in adolescents.Publication Investigating the relationship between individual differences and island sensitivity(Ubiquity Press, 2020-09-17) Pham, Catherine; Covey, Lauren; Gabriele, Alison; Aldosari, Saad; Fiorentino, RobertIt is well-attested that native speakers tend to give low acceptability ratings to sentences that involve movement from within islands, yet the source of island effects remains an active debate. The grammatical account posits that island effects result from syntactic constraints on wh-movement, whereas the resource-limitation view posits that low ratings emerge due to processing-related constraints on the parser, such that islands themselves present processing bottlenecks. The current study addresses this debate by investigating the relationship between island sensitivity and individual differences in cognitive abilities, as it has been argued that the two views make distinct predictions regarding whether a relationship should hold. Building directly on Sprouse et al. (2012a), we tested 102 native English speakers on 4 island types (whether, complex NP, subject, and adjunct islands) using an acceptability judgment task with wh-questions presented in context to quantify island sensitivity and three cognitive tasks to capture individual differences in working memory (via reading span and counting span task) and attentional control (via a number Stroop task). Our methodological approach takes into account several criticisms that have been made of Sprouse et al.’s (2012a; b) work, particularly the criticisms outlined in Hofmeister et al. (2012a; b). Our results reveal strong island sensitivity effects across all island types. However, individual differences in cognitive abilities do not strongly modulate island sensitivity. These results suggest that island effects emerge due to the existence of syntactic constraints and not because of processing difficulties, in line with the grammatical account.Publication ADFAC: Automatic detection of facial articulatory features(Elsevier, 2020-07-22) Garg, Saurabh; Hamarneh, Ghassan; Jongman, Allard; Sereno, Joan A.; Wang, YueUsing computer-vision and image processing techniques, we aim to identify specific visual cues as induced by facial movements made during monosyllabic speech production. The method is named ADFAC: Automatic Detection of Facial Articulatory Cues. Four facial points of interest were detected automatically to represent head, eyebrow and lip movements: nose tip (proxy for head movement), medial point of left eyebrow, and midpoints of the upper and lower lips. The detected points were then automatically tracked in the subsequent video frames. Critical features such as the distance, velocity, and acceleration describing local facial movements with respect to the resting face of each speaker were extracted from the positional profiles of each tracked point. In this work, a variant of random forest is proposed to determine which facial features are significant in classifying speech sound categories. The method takes in both video and audio as input and extracts features from any video with a plain or simple background. The method is implemented in MATLAB and scripts are made available on GitHub for easy access. • Using innovative computer-vision and image processing techniques to automatically detect and track keypoints on the face during speech production in videos, thus allowing more natural articulation than previous sensor-based approaches. • Measuring multi-dimensional and dynamic facial movements by extracting time-related, distance-related and kinematics-related features in speech production. • Adopting the novel random forest classification approach to determine and rank the significance of facial features toward accurate speech sound categorization.Publication The Role of Surface and Underlying Forms When Processing Tonal Alternations in Mandarin Chinese: A Mismatch Negativity Study(Frontiers Media, 2020-04-08) Chien, Yu-Fu; Yang, Xiao; Fiorentino, Robert; Sereno, Joan A.Phonological alternation (sound change depending on the phonological environment) poses challenges to spoken word recognition models. Mandarin Chinese T3 sandhi is such a phenomenon in which a tone 3 (T3) changes into a tone 2 (T2) when followed by another T3. In a mismatch negativity (MMN) study examining Mandarin Chinese T3 sandhi, participants passively listened to either a T2 word [tʂu2 je4] /tʂu2 je4/, a T3 word [tʂu3 je4] /tʂu3 je4/, a sandhi word [tʂu2 jen3] /tʂu3 jen3/, or a mix of T3 and sandhi word standards. The deviant in each condition was a T2 word [tʂu2]. Results showed an MMN only in the T2 and T3 conditions but not in the Sandhi or Mix conditions. All conditions also yielded omission MMNs. This pattern cannot be explained based on the surface forms of standards and deviants; rather these data suggest an underspecified or underlying T3 stored linguistic representation used in spoken word processing.Publication The Acquisition of Directionals in Two Mayan Languages(Frontiers Media, 2019-11-01) Pye, Clifton; Pfeiler, BarbaraWe use the comparative method of language acquisition research in this article to investigate children’s expression of directional clitics in two Eastern Mayan languages – K’iche’ and Mam (Pye and Pfeiler, 2014; Pye, 2017). The comparative method in historical linguistics reconstructs the grammatical antecedents of modern languages and traces the evolution of each linguistic feature (Paul, 1889; Campbell, 1998). This history informs research on language acquisition by demonstrating how phonological and morphological features interact in the evolution of new uses for common inherited traits. Children acquiring modern languages must learn the arbitrary constraints imposed on their language by its history.Publication Sensitivity to Inflectional Morphology in a Non-native Language: Evidence From ERPs(Frontiers Media, 2019-05-20) Coughlin, Caitlin E.; Fiorentino, Robert; Royle, Phaedra; Steinhauer, Karsten; Thierry, GuillaumeThe extent to which non-native speakers are sensitive to morphological structure during language processing remains a matter of debate. The present study used a masked-priming lexical decision task with simultaneous electroencephalographic (EEG) recording to investigate whether native and non-native speakers of French yield similar or different behavioral and brain-level responses to inflected verbs. The results from reaction time and EEG analyses indicate that both native and non-native French speakers were indeed sensitive to morphological structure, and that this sensitivity cannot be explained simply by the presence of orthographic or semantic overlap between prime and target. Moreover, sensitivity to morphological structure in non-native speakers was not influenced by proficiency (as reflected by the N400); lower-level learners show similar sensitivity at the word level as very advanced learners. These results demonstrate that native-like processing of inflectional morphology is possible in adult learners, even at lower levels of proficiency, which runs counter to proposals suggesting that native-like processing of inflection is beyond non-native speakers' reach. The question of whether or not adult learners of a second language can decompose inflected words (e.g., walked) into morphological constituents (walk+-ed) and access morphological-level representations in the lexicon has received much attention in recent years. Some researchers propose that, like native speakers, second language (L2) learners are indeed sensitive to the morphological structure of inflected forms, and process complex forms via their morphological constituents (e.g., Basnight-Brown et al., 2007; Feldman et al., 2010; Coughlin and Tremblay, 2015), although it has been suggested that this may only be possible at high levels of proficiency (e.g., Ullman, 2005; Bowden et al., 2010; Babcock et al., 2012). By contrast, other researchers have proposed that adult L2 learners are insensitive to inflectional morphological structure due to a deficient grammar, and this deficiency is not predicted to improve with increased proficiency (e.g., Silva and Clahsen, 2008; Neubauer and Clahsen, 2009; Clahsen et al., 2010; Jacob et al., 2013, 2018). While some studies have found evidence of non-native speakers decomposing derived words (e.g., Silva and Clahsen, 2008; Jacob et al., 2018), many studies fail to find evidence for inflectional morphology decomposition. Given mixed results from recent studies, our current understanding of how non-native speakers process morphologically complex words remains unclear. The present study used a masked-priming lexical decision task during EEG recording to investigate how native and non-native French speakers process verbal inflection morphology. The combined use of masked priming and EEG allows one to test not only whether learners are able to show native-like sensitivity to inflectional morphology in their behavioral responses, but also whether their brain responses are indeed qualitatively similar to those of native speakers.Publication Context-Sensitivity and Individual Differences in the Derivation of Scalar Implicature(Frontiers Media, 2018-09-20) Yang, Xiao; Minai, Utako; Fiorentino, Robert; Reboul, Anne ColetteThe derivation of scalar implicatures for the quantifier some has been widely studied to investigate the computation of pragmatically enriched meanings. For example, the sentence “I found some books” carries the semantic interpretation that at least one book was found, but its interpretation is often enriched to include the implicature that not all the books were found. The implicature is argued to be more likely to arise when it is relevant for addressing a question under discussion (QUD) in the context, e.g., when “I found some books” is uttered in response to “Did you find all the books?” as opposed to “Did you find any books?”. However, most experimental studies have not examined the influence of context on some, instead testing some sentences in isolation. Moreover, no study to our knowledge has examined individual differences in the ability to utilize context in interpreting some, whereas individual variation in deriving implicatures for some sentences in isolation is widely attested, with alternative proposals attributing this variation to individual differences in cognitive resources (e.g., working memory) or personality-based pragmatic abilities (e.g., as assessed by the Autism-Spectrum Quotient). The current study examined how context influences the interpretation of some in a story-sentence matching task, where participants rated some statements (“I cut some steaks”) uttered by one character, in response to another character’s question (QUD) that established the implicature as relevant (“Did you cut all the steaks?”) or irrelevant (“Did you cut any steaks?”). We also examined to what extent individuals’ sensitivity to QUD is modulated by individual differences via a battery of measures assessing cognitive resources, personality-based pragmatic abilities, and language abilities (which have been argued to modulate comprehension in other domains). Our results demonstrate that QUD affects the interpretation of some, and reveal that individual differences in sensitivity to QUD are modulated by both cognitive resources and personality-based pragmatic abilities. While previous studies have argued alternatively for cognitive resources or personality-based pragmatic abilities as important for deriving implicatures for some in isolation, we argue that arriving at a context-sensitive interpretation for some depends on both cognitive and personality-based properties of the individual.Publication Almost at-a-distance(Lingustics and Philosophy, 2019-08-08) McKenzie, Andrew; Newkirk, LydiaWe claim that the meaning of the adverbial almost contains both a scalar proximity measure and a modal that allows it to work sometimes when proximity fails, what we call the at-a-distance reading. Essentially, almost can hold if the proposition follows from the normal uninterrupted outcomes of adding a small enough number of premises to a selection of relevant facts. Almost at-a-distance is blocked when the temporal properties of the topic time and Davidsonian event prevent normal outcomes from coming true when they need to. This approach to almost differs from the two general approaches that have emerged in the literature, by replacing the negative polar condition (not p) with a positive antecedent condition that entails not p while avoiding the numerous well-documented complications of employing a polar condition. Since this approach to almost involves a circumstantial base with a non-interrupting ordering source, almost behaves in certain ways like the progressive, and shows contextual variability of the same kinds that we see with premise sets.Publication Kiowa verb incorporation and types of mediating relations(GLSA, 2019-02) McKenzie, Andrew; Johnson, Kimberly; Goebel, AlexPublication Latent homomorphism and content satisfaction: The double life of Turkic auxiliary -(I)p bol-(Ubiquity Press, 2018-04-10) McKenzie, Andrew; Eziz, Gulnar; Major, TravisThis paper argues that the Turkic auxiliary construction –(İ)p bol–, at least in Uyghur and Uzbek, is actually a pair of auxiliaries with distinct meanings. The first auxiliary is described as expressing “full completion” of the event, but its use is highly restricted, to events with incremental or universally quantified themes. Using targeted context-based elicitation, we find that the expression of completion is indirect. Instead, the auxiliary asserts that the event description is homomorphic, in that all of its events are both event-mapped and theme-mapped. Homomorphism requires every part of the theme to undergo a part of the event, and this derives the reported sense of completion. The second auxiliary is not attested in the literature. It applies to all kinds of events, and expresses what we call “content satisfaction,” the conventional implicature that the event as described satisfies some salient propositional content by rendering it true. For instance, it makes part of a plan come to fruition. This plan is presupposed, and the content is accessible through a content-generating function. We apply the methodologies of formal semantic fieldwork to tease these auxiliaries apart, including scope tests that apply differently to the two auxiliaries. Having distinguished them, we suggest new ways to typologically distinguish Turkic auxiliaries and auxiliaries cross-linguistically.Publication Experience with a second language affects the use of fundamental frequency in speech segmentation(Public Library of Science, 2017-07-24) Tremblay, Annie; Namjoshi, Jui; Spinelli, Elsa; Broersma, Mirjam; Cho, Taehong; Kim, Sahyang; Martínez-García, María Teresa; Connell, Katrina S.This study investigates whether listeners’ experience with a second language learned later in life affects their use of fundamental frequency (F0) as a cue to word boundaries in the segmentation of an artificial language (AL), particularly when the cues to word boundaries conflict between the first language (L1) and second language (L2). F0 signals phrase-final (and thus word-final) boundaries in French but word-initial boundaries in English. Participants were functionally monolingual French listeners, functionally monolingual English listeners, bilingual L1-English L2-French listeners, and bilingual L1-French L2-English listeners. They completed the AL-segmentation task with F0 signaling word-final boundaries or without prosodic cues to word boundaries (monolingual groups only). After listening to the AL, participants completed a forced-choice word-identification task in which the foils were either non-words or part-words. The results show that the monolingual French listeners, but not the monolingual English listeners, performed better in the presence of F0 cues than in the absence of such cues. Moreover, bilingual status modulated listeners’ use of F0 cues to word-final boundaries, with bilingual French listeners performing less accurately than monolingual French listeners on both word types but with bilingual English listeners performing more accurately than monolingual English listeners on non-words. These findings not only confirm that speech segmentation is modulated by the L1, but also newly demonstrate that listeners’ experience with the L2 (French or English) affects their use of F0 cues in speech segmentation. This suggests that listeners’ use of prosodic cues to word boundaries is adaptive and non-selective, and can change as a function of language experience.