%0 Journal Article
%T Rapid infant learning of syntactic-semantic links.
%A Barbir M
%A Babineau MJ
%A Fiévet AC
%A Christophe A
%J Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
%V 120
%N 1
%D 01 2023 3
%M 36574655
%F 12.779
%R 10.1073/pnas.2209153119
%X In the second year of life, infants begin to rapidly acquire the lexicon of their native language. A key learning mechanism underlying this acceleration is syntactic bootstrapping: the use of hidden cues in grammar to facilitate vocabulary learning. How infants forge the syntactic-semantic links that underlie this mechanism, however, remains speculative. A hurdle for theories is identifying computationally light strategies that have high precision within the complexity of the linguistic signal. Here, we presented 20-mo-old infants with novel grammatical elements in a complex natural language environment and measured their resultant vocabulary expansion. We found that infants can learn and exploit a natural language syntactic-semantic link in less than 30 min. The rapid speed of acquisition of a new syntactic bootstrap indicates that even emergent syntactic-semantic links can accelerate language learning. The results suggest that infants employ a cognitive network of efficient learning strategies to self-supervise language development.