Department of Cognitive Science, University of Malta, Malta; Hanyang Institute for Phonetics and Cognitive Science, Department of English Language and Literature, Hanyang University, Korea.
Department of English Education, Hongik University, Korea.
Lang Speech. 2021 Dec;64(4):962-979. doi: 10.1177/0023830920974401. Epub 2020 Dec 11.
In two experiments, it was investigated whether potentially contrastive segmental information in the form of an epenthetic glottal stop in Maltese can influence syntactic parsing decisions. The glottal stop in Maltese serves a dual function as a phoneme used for lexical contrast and a non-contrastive phone that may mark a prosodic juncture. In both experiments, participants perceived a larger prosodic boundary before the word (Engl. "and") if the was produced with an epenthetic glottal stop, showing the use of prosodically conditioned segmental information in syntactic parsing. Furthermore, listeners were generally unaware of the existence of the epenthetic glottal stop even though a glottal stop is used as a phoneme represented as a grapheme "q." They also perceived a larger prosodic juncture when the preceding syllable was lengthened before the word ("and"). These findings were consistent regardless of whether the glottal stop reinforced a late-closure decision (Experiment 1) or an early-closure decision (Experiment 2). The results indicate that both segmental and suprasegmental information influences syntactic parsing decisions, demonstrating that the syntax-prosody interface is reflected along both the segmental and suprasegmental (duration) dimensions, which are mediated by the phonetics-prosody interface.
在两项实验中，我们探究了马耳他语中一种额外的声门塞音是否会影响句法分析决策。马耳他语中的声门塞音具有双重功能，既是用于词汇对比的音位，也是可能标记韵律边界的非对比音。在这两项实验中，如果单词 （英语：“and”）之前的 发音带有额外的声门塞音，参与者会在感知上认为这个词之前有更大的韵律边界，这表明在句法分析中会利用韵律条件下的音段信息。此外，尽管声门塞音被用作代表“q”的音标，但即使存在额外的声门塞音，听众通常也无法察觉到它的存在。当单词 （英语：“and”）之前的音节在发音上延长时，他们也会感知到更大的韵律边界。这些发现与声门塞音强化闭音节决策（实验 1）或开音节决策（实验 2）无关。这些结果表明，音段和超音段信息都会影响句法分析决策，这表明句法-韵律界面反映在音段和超音段（时长）维度上，这两个维度都受到音位-韵律界面的调节。
