Sensitivity to Phonological Universals: The Case of Stops and Fricatives

Abstract

Linguistic evidence suggests that syllables like bdam (with stop-stop clusters) are less preferred than bzam (with stop-fricative combinations). Here, we demonstrate that English speakers manifest similar preferences despite no direct experience with either structure. Experiment 1 elicited syllable count for auditory materials (e.g., does bzam have one syllable or two?); Experiment 2 examined the AX discrimination of auditory stimuli (e.g., is bzam = bezam?); whereas Experiment 3 repeated this task using printed materials. Results showed that syllables that are dispreferred across languages (e.g., bdam) were prone to misidentification relative to preferred syllables (e.g., bzam). The emergence of this pattern irrespective of stimulus modality--for auditory and printed materials--suggests that misidentification does not solely stem from a phonetic failure. Further, the effect remained significant after controlling for various statistical properties of the materials. These results suggest that speakers possess broad linguistic preferences that extend to syllables they have never encountered before.

Universal Restrictions in Reading: What Do French Beginning Readers (Mis)perceive?

“…Although we did not probe all the phonetic transformations that do exist in speech perception (e.g., schwa deletion, consonant lenition, etc. ; e.g., Hayes and Steriade, 2004;Kirchner, 2004;Davidson, 2006Davidson, , 2011Bürki et al, 2011;Davidson and Shaw, 2012), we propose that the color misperception does not stem from spectral or acousticphonetic failures to encode and decode the C 1 C 2 clusters, and is more abstract, since there is no obvious evidence that such cues are required and involved in reading strategies (e.g., Berent and Lennertz, 2010;Tamási and Berent, 2014). Furthermore, the IC patterns are not due to a gestural failure to articulate the C 1 C 2 clusters, since there is no reliable evidence that children articulate or need to articulate them (e.g., Wright, 2004;Redford, 2008).…”

Phonological generalizations in dyslexia: The phonological grammar may not be impaired

“…And indeed, other results demonstrate that the sonority effect is reliable and replicable. It has been documented with stop-sonorant onsets (e.g., bl ≻ bn ≻ bd; Berent, Harder, et al, 2011;Berent et al, 2008;Berent, Lennertz, & Rosselli, 2012;Berent et al, 2007), nasal-initial combinations (ml ≻md; Berent, Lennertz, & Balaban, 2012;Berent et al, 2009), and, recently, even the minute sonority clines consisting of stop-fricative onsets (ps ≻ pt; see also Maïonchi-Pino et al, 2013;Tamasi & Berent, 2013). We thus suspect that the null results reported by Davidson and colleagues result not from the fragility of the onset hierarchy, but rather from various methodological factors (e.g., failures to equate the sonority conditions on the initial consonant, different task characteristics, and the evaluation of sonority effects by a post hoc analysis of an imbalanced design and a small number of unmatched items).…”

Universal Restrictions on Syllable Structure: Evidence From Mandarin Chinese

“…Additional analyses suggest that misidentification is not solely due to failures to encode acoustic input, as the misidentification of ill-formed onsets persist even for printed materials (Berent et al 2009;Berent and Lennertz 2010;Tamasi and Berent 2014). Other results speak against an articulatory motor explanation-the possibility that people misidentify ill-formed syllables because they have difficulties in tacitly generating their motor plan.…”