Possible-Word Constraints in Cantonese Speech Segmentation

• Published in: Journal of psycholinguistic research Vol. 33; no. 2; pp. 165 - 173
• Main Author: Yip, Michael C. W
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Springer 01-03-2004; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Auditory Perception; Humans; Language; Language Universals; Oral Language; Phonemes; Phonology; Psycholinguistics; Reaction Time; Sino Tibetan Languages; Speech Perception; Syllables; Task Analysis; Vocabulary
• ISSN: 0090-6905; 1573-6555
• DOI: 10.1023/B:JOPR.0000017225.65288.4b

A Cantonese syllable-spotting experiment was conducted to examine whether the Possible-Word Constraint (PWC), proposed by Norris, McQueen, Cutler, and Butterfield (1997), can apply in Cantonese speech segmentation. In the experiment, listeners were asked to spot out the target Cantonese syllable from a series of nonsense sound strings. Results suggested that listeners found it more difficult to spot out the target syllable [k D m[superscript 1]] in the nonsense sound strings that attached with a single consonant [tk D m[superscript 1]] than in the nonsense sound strings that attached either with a vowel [a:k D m[superscript 1]] or a pseudo-syllable [khow[superscript 1]k D m[superscript 1]]. Finally, the current set of results further supported that the PWC appears to be a language-universal mechanism in segmenting continuous speech.