Krakow R A, Beddor P S, Goldstein L M, Fowler C A
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06511.
J Acoust Soc Am. 1988 Mar;83(3):1146-58. doi: 10.1121/1.396059.
Certain of the complex spectral effects of vowel nasalization bear a resemblance to the effects of modifying the tongue or jaw position with which the vowel is produced. Perceptual evidence suggests that listener misperceptions of nasal vowel height arise as a result of this resemblance. Whereas previous studies examined isolated nasal vowels, this research focused on the role of phonetic context in shaping listeners' judgments of nasal vowel height. Identification data obtained from native American English speakers indicated that nasal coupling does not necessarily lead to listener misperceptions of vowel quality when the vowel's nasality is coarticulatory in nature. The perceived height of contextually nasalized vowels (in a [bVnd] environment) did not differ from that of oral vowels (in a [bVd] environment) produced with the same tongue-jaw configuration. In contrast, corresponding noncontextually nasalized vowels (in a [bVd] environment) were perceived as lower in quality than vowels in the other two conditions. Presumably the listeners' lack of experience with distinctive vowel nasalization prompted them to resolve the spectral effects of noncontextual nasalization in terms of tongue or jaw height, rather than velic height. The implications of these findings with respect to sound changes affecting nasal vowel height are also discussed.
元音鼻化的某些复杂频谱效应与改变元音发音时舌头或下颚位置所产生的效应相似。感知证据表明，听众对鼻化元音高度的误判正是由于这种相似性所致。以往的研究考察的是孤立的鼻化元音，而本研究聚焦于语音语境在塑造听众对鼻化元音高度判断方面的作用。从以美式英语为母语的人那里获得的识别数据表明，当元音的鼻音属于协同发音性质时，鼻腔耦合不一定会导致听众对元音音质的误判。在相同的舌颚配置下，在语境中鼻化的元音（在[bVnd]环境中）被感知到的高度与口腔元音（在[bVd]环境中）并无差异。相比之下，相应的非语境鼻化元音（在[bVd]环境中）被感知到的音质比其他两种情况下的元音更低。据推测，听众对独特的元音鼻化缺乏经验，促使他们根据舌头或下颚高度而非软腭高度来解析非语境鼻化的频谱效应。此外，还讨论了这些发现对于影响鼻化元音高度的语音变化的意义。
