8-month-old infants' ability to process word order is shaped by the amount of exposure

In the majority of languages, functional distinction between functors and content words correlates with lower-level, perceptually observable properties. Functors are generally more frequent prosodically minimal than words. Previous studies demonstrate that frequency distribution different acoustic realization infrequent guide infants in discovering their native word order. However, whether if yes, how exact ratio impacts infants' ability to recognize function relative order has never been explored. Here we investigate this by testing a small functors' words' frequency, 1:3 as opposed 1:9 previous studies, French 8-month-olds able establish functor-initial typical language (Experiment 1) prosody 2) amount exposure 3) modulate ability. We observed exhibited predicted preference only when they were exposed short familiarization phase, i.e. reduced exposure. This suggests amounts information selectively trigger processing mechanisms, little may favor extraction regularities.