Two experiments investigated whether novel phonotactic regularities, not present in English, could be acquired by 16.5-month-olds from brief auditory experience. Subjects listened to consonant-vowel-consonant syllables in which particular consonants were artificially restricted to either initial or final position. Findings in a subsequent head-turn preference test indicated that infants listened longer to new syllables that violated the experimental phonotactic constraints than to new syllables that honored them. (Author/KB)