LINGUIST List 30.3493
Wed Sep 18 2019
Diss: Phonology: Sayako Uehara: '' Word Segmentation for Japanese and English Speakers: Language-Independent and Language-Dependent Cues''
Editor for this issue: Sarah Robinson <srobinsonlinguistlist.org>
Date: 16-Sep-2019
From: Sayako Uehara <suehara
nd.edu>
Subject: Word Segmentation for Japanese and English Speakers: Language-Independent and Language-Dependent Cues
E-mail this message to a friend Institution: Michigan State University
Program: Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2019
Author: Sayako Uehara
Dissertation Title: Word Segmentation for Japanese and English Speakers: Language-Independent and Language-Dependent Cues
Linguistic Field(s): Phonology
Dissertation Director:
Yen-Hwei Lin
Karthik Durvasula
Dissertation Abstract:
Phonotactic knowledge and experience-independent knowledge have both been argued to cue word segmentation in prior studies (e.g. Ettlinger, Finn, & Hudson Kam, 2011; McQueen, 1998). This dissertation attempts to compare the effect of two types of cues, language-independent and language-dependent knowledge, on word segmentation. The specific cues selected for each type were the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP) as a language-independent cue and geminates (double consonants) as a language-dependent cue. The effectiveness of the cues was determined by two groups of speakers with different language background, native Japanese and native American English speakers. The two languages were chosen particularly because they contrast in two aspects relevant to these specific cues: (1) Japanese has a simple syllable structure, no consonant clusters (except for consonant-glide sequences), while English has an extensive set of bi-consonantal clusters and limited tri-consonantal clusters. (2) Japanese has a phonemic consonant length contrast (singletons vs. geminates), while English lacks such a contrast. Details of (1) are relevant for testing the SSP, and those of (2) for testing geminates as a cue to word segmentation.
The results from three artificial language learning experiments consistently indicate, contrary to prior claims, that the (language-independent) SSP is not a reliable cue to segment speech strings for either language groups, regardless of the difference in syllable structure. On the other hand, knowledge about language-dependent geminates seems to be a good
predictor as to how speakers segment words from a string with word-internal geminates. Japanese speakers, whose language has a phonemic contrast between geminates and singleton consonants, consistently segmented the speech string so that geminates were retained within words, whereas English speakers without such a contrast in their native language tended to break up the string at geminates. Moreover, the results indicate that listeners are able to rely heavily on the transitional probability (TP) of the syllables to segment the string, primarily when the structure of the stimulus words in the target speech string is simple.
From the results of this study, language-dependent knowledge seems to be more effective than language-independent knowledge in word segmentation.
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