Title

Coda Discrimination is Governed by Acoustic and Phonological Constraints: A Case Study of the Generalized Linear Model  

Author

Chu, Man-ni Lin, Hui-wen  

Genre

Article  

Pages

47~66   

Download

PDF

Language

English

Key words

Shantou, terminal plosives, accuracy rate, second formant transitions  

Abstract

    A series of studies has shown that consonants can be categorized by their acoustic character. A gating experiment was designed to recognize the factors used to identify terminal plosives correctly. Nine native residents of Shantou, in China's Guangdong Province, were recruited as subjects. The dialect spoken in Shantou does not allow */ap/ and */at/. Participants were asked to identify /taC/ and /kaC/ under conditions where C is one of the four choices /p, t, k, ʔ/. The overall rate of accuracy, from highest to lowest, was /p/>/k/, /ʔ/>/t/. In general, the similarities in the formant transitions of /t， k, ʔ/, also observed by Tartter et al. (1983), confused subjects, which resulted in a higher recognition rate for the labial stop. Results suggested that the subjects' language background helped discriminate the remaining sounds; for example, /k, ʔ/ were correctly identified more often than /t/.