Lahiri A, Marslen-Wilson W
Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Cognition. 1991 Mar;38(3):245-94. doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(91)90008-r.
We propose a psycholinguistic model of lexical processing which incorporates both process and representation. The view of lexical access and selection that we advocate claims that these processes are conducted with respect to abstract underspecified phonological representations of lexical form. The abstract form of a given item in the recognition lexicon is an integrated segmental-featural representation, where all predictable and non-distinctive information is withheld. This means that listeners do not have available to them, as they process the speech input, a representation of the surface phonetic realisation of a given word-form. What determines performance is the abstract, underspecified representation with respect to which this surface string is being interpreted. These claims were tested by studying the interpretation of the same phonological feature, vowel nasality, in two languages, English and Bengali. The underlying status of this feature differs in the two languages; nasality is distinctive only in consonants in English, while both vowels and consonants contrast in nasality in Bengali. Both languages have an assimilation process which spreads nasality from a nasal consonant to the preceding vowel. A cross-linguistic gating study was conducted to investigate whether listeners would interpret nasal and oral vowels differently in two languages. The results show that surface phonetic nasality in the vowel in VN sequences is used by English listeners to anticipate the upcoming nasal consonant. In Bengali, however, nasality is initially interpreted as an underlying nasal vowel. Bengali listeners respond to CVN stimuli with words containing a nasal vowel, until they get information about the nasal consonant. In contrast, oral vowels in both languages are unspecified for nasality and are interpreted accordingly. Listeners in both languages respond with CVN words (which have phonetic nasality on the surface) as well as with CVC words while hearing an oral vowel. The results of this cross-linguistic study support, in detail, the hypothesis that the listener's interpretation of the speech input is in terms of an abstract underspecified representation of lexical form.
我们提出了一种词汇加工的心理语言学模型，该模型融合了加工过程和表征。我们所倡导的词汇通达和选择观点认为，这些过程是相对于词汇形式的抽象的、未完全确定的语音表征进行的。识别词库中给定项目的抽象形式是一种整合的音段特征表征，其中所有可预测的和非区别性的信息都被保留。这意味着，听众在处理语音输入时，无法获得给定单词形式的表面语音实现的表征。决定表现的是这个表面字符串正在被解释的抽象的、未完全确定的表征。通过研究英语和孟加拉语这两种语言中相同语音特征——元音鼻音的解释，对这些观点进行了测试。该特征在两种语言中的底层地位不同；鼻音在英语中仅在辅音中具有区别性，而在孟加拉语中元音和辅音在鼻音方面都形成对比。两种语言都有一个同化过程，该过程会将鼻音从鼻辅音传播到前面的元音。进行了一项跨语言的门控研究，以调查听众在两种语言中对鼻音和口腔元音的解释是否不同。结果表明，英语听众利用VN序列中元音的表面语音鼻音来预测即将出现的鼻辅音。然而，在孟加拉语中，鼻音最初被解释为底层的鼻元音。孟加拉语听众对CVN刺激的反应是说出包含鼻元音的单词，直到他们获得有关鼻辅音的信息。相比之下，两种语言中的口腔元音在鼻音方面都是未确定的，并据此进行解释。两种语言的听众在听到口腔元音时，都会用CVN单词（表面上有语音鼻音）以及CVC单词做出反应。这项跨语言研究的结果详细支持了这样一种假设，即听众对语音输入的解释是基于词汇形式的抽象的、未完全确定的表征。
