Jongman A, Sereno J A, Raaijmakers M, Lahiri A
Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853.
Lang Speech. 1992 Jan-Jun;35 ( Pt 1-2):137-52. doi: 10.1177/002383099203500212.
This paper examines to what extent phonological representations affect word identification. The contrast under investigation involves the interaction between voicing and vowel length in Dutch. Dutch has underlying contrasts both in obstruent voicing and in vowel length. The voicing contrast is neutralized on the surface in syllable-final position. Also, both long and short vowels are lengthened by some 25 msec when followed by medial voiced obstruents. The present study investigated whether this vowel length cue influenced listeners when hearing stimuli with ambiguous vowel duration in an identical, neutralized consonantal context in which the underlying representation of the obstruent following the vowel differed in voicing. A vowel length continuum ([at] to [a:t]) was created and appended to initial consonants to make two pairs of real words. Each pair differed in vowel length with opposite underlying final consonant representations: /zat/-/za:d/, and /stad/-/sta:t/. Our question was whether the vowel category boundaries would be different in pairs like /zat/-/za:d/ as compared to /stad/-/sta:t/. Although the underlying consonant is either voiced or voiceless, the surface word-final consonant for both pairs of stimuli is always voiceless ([t]). If the listener uses a surface representation with a voiceless consonant to recognize the words, there should be no difference in categorization of the vowel-length continua. The results of a vowel categorization task, however, showed a significant difference in the location of the phoneme boundaries between the two continua, suggesting that listeners' perception seems to be guided by the underlying phonological representation of words.
本文探讨了语音表征在多大程度上影响单词识别。所研究的对比涉及荷兰语中浊音和元音长度之间的相互作用。荷兰语在塞音浊音和元音长度方面都存在潜在的对比。浊音对比在音节末尾位置在表面上被中和。此外，当长元音和短元音后面跟着中间的浊塞音时，它们都会延长约25毫秒。本研究调查了在元音持续时间模糊的刺激中，当元音后面的塞音的潜在表征在浊音方面不同时，这种元音长度线索是否会影响听众，且所处的辅音语境相同且已中和。创建了一个元音长度连续统（[at]到[a:t]）并附加到初始辅音上，以形成两对真实单词。每对单词在元音长度上不同，且末尾辅音的潜在表征相反：/zat/-/za:d/，以及/stad/-/sta:t/。我们的问题是，与/stad/-/sta:t/相比，/zat/-/za:d/这样的单词对中的元音类别边界是否会有所不同。尽管潜在的辅音要么是浊音要么是清音，但这两对刺激的表面单词末尾辅音始终是清音（[t]）。如果听众使用带有清音辅音的表面表征来识别单词，那么在元音长度连续统的分类上应该没有差异。然而，元音分类任务的结果表明，两个连续统之间音素边界的位置存在显著差异，这表明听众的感知似乎受到单词潜在语音表征的引导。
