The Use of Syntactically Redundant Phonetic Cues in Speech Perception

Cohen, C. (2023) The Use of Syntactically Redundant Phonetic Cues in Speech Perception. In: Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic, 7-11 August 2023, pp. 4023-4027. ISBN 9788090811423

Abstract

Subsegmental phonetic detail can be highly informative about upcoming word structure. For example, shortened stems tend to signal that suffixes or additional syllables will follow. Yet preceding morphosyntactic context can reduce the informational value of such cues. This study asks whether listeners still attend to phonetic detail in such contexts. In a visual world eye-tracking experiment, 21 listeners distinguished singular target nouns named in audio recordings of English sentences from plural or two-syllable competitors. In the sentences, noun stems were lengthened or shortened, and positioned either after an agreeing determiner (this/that), rendering durational cues to plural suffixes redundant, or after the neutral determiner the, rendering them informative. GAMM analysis of gaze traces revealed that lengthening the stem facilitated perception, but only after agreeing determiners. This suggests not only automatic processing of redundant phonetic detail, but a requirement that such detail can be predicted from context before it can be processed.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Cohen, Dr Clara
• Authors: Cohen, C.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Language and Linguistics
• ISSN: 2412-0669
• ISBN: 9788090811423

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