Thought-provoking. My own experience is that a linked sequence of remembered events begins with fluent speech &, probably more important, internal narrative, consistent with your citation of Jon Simons.
Earlier ‘fragments’ to which you refer are indeed connected with intense feeling rather than language. I remember being bathed by my mother in a metal tub, in a house we left when I was 22 months old: warm water being poured over my head, causing a mixture of pleasure & fear. Nothing more. My next ‘fragment’ dates from about age 4 years & three months. Even my first day of school provides just one momentary image, the astonishing sight of identical twins. Nothing more.
Data on false memory has profound implications in law of course; witnesses, including police, ‘remember’ things that might lead to false conviction (or acquittal).
Thank you for your stimulating article.