| Summary: | In an artificial language-learning task, two groups of English and French participants learned
one of two language rules: 1) stress the first heavy (CVC) syllable, else the first syllable, or, 2) stress the first
light (CV) syllable, else the first syllable. French and English participants were chosen to compare learning
outcomes by speakers of different native stress systems, fixed and variable. Participants were trained on
the target language by listening to a set of nonsense familiarization words exemplifying the stress rule.
This was followed by a forced-choice task to choose the correct version of the words they had just learned.
Following the training procedure, participants were tested on novel words with the same stress pattern to
which they were familiarized. The result of the novel word testing was that the natural rule with stress on
heavy syllables was learned significantly better than the unnatural, stress light syllables, rule. To account
for the learnability of both the natural and the unnatural rules, I argue for the interaction of a general
cognitive mechanism that facilitates learning in general and a domain-specific language mechanism that
can access universal phonological principles to aid in learning a natural language rule.
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