To successfully understand spoken language, listeners need to determine how words within sentences relate to one another. Although the ability to compute relationships between word categories is known to develop early in life, little research has been conducted on infants' early sensitivity to subcategorical dependencies, such as those evoked by grammatical gender (where the article form is dictated by the noun's gender). This study therefore examines whether French‐learning 18‐month‐olds track such relationships. Using the Visual Fixation Procedure, infants were presented with article–noun sequences in which the gender‐marked article either matched (e.g., la FEM poussette FEM “the stroller”) or mismatched (e.g., le MASC poussette FEM ) the gender of the noun. A clear preference for correct over incorrect co‐occurrences was observed, suggesting that by 18 months of age, children's storage and access of words is sufficiently sophisticated to include the means to track subcategorical dependencies. This early sensitivity to gender information may be greatly beneficial for constraining lexical access during online language processing.

Marieke van Heugten

Anne Christophe

Infancy

Infancy, the official journal of the International Society on Infant Studies, emphasizes the highest quality original research on normal and aberrant infant development during the first two years. Both human and animal research are included. In addition to regular length research articles and brief reports (3000-word maximum), the journal includes solicited target articles along with a series of commentaries; debates, in which different theoretical positions are presented along with a series of commentaries; and thematic collections, a group of three to five reports or summaries of research on the same issue, conducted independently at different laboratories, with invited commentaries.

Infancy, the official journal of the International Society on Infant Studies, focuses on high-quality original research regarding both normal and atypical infant development during the first two years of life. The journal includes both human and animal studies. In addition to regular-length research articles and brief reports (maximum 3000 words), it features solicited target articles, debates presenting different theoretical perspectives along with commentaries, and thematic collections comprising three to five independent research reports or summaries on the same issue, accompanied by invited commentaries.

《Infancy》是国际婴儿研究学会的官方期刊，专注于高质量的原创研究，涵盖正常和异常的婴儿发展，特别是在生命的前两年。期刊接受人类和动物的研究。除了常规的研究文章和简短报告（最多3000字），期刊还包括特邀的主题文章、辩论（不同理论观点的呈现及其评论）以及专题集合（由三到五篇独立于不同实验室进行的研究报告或总结组成，并附有特邀评论）。

Infants' Acquisition of Grammatical Gender Dependencies

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Journal Info

Category	Quartile
PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL	3