The interaction of vowel quantity and tonal cues in cognitive processing: An MMNstudy concerning dialectal and standard varieties
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Alexander Werth
Abstract
In this study, the influence of two dialectal prosodic features on the processing of lexical meaning during spoken word recognition was investigated in German dialect and non-dialect speakers. Previous studies in the field of German dialectology investigated differences between dialectal varieties and the Standard German variety by using mainly offline production and perception studies. The present study concentrates on brain responses to the phonological contrast of vowel quantity combined with tone accents, which occur in Germany exclusively in the Middle-Franconian dialect area (Moselle-Franconian, Ripuarian and southern Low Franconian dialects) but not in Standard German. In an event-related potential-study using a classic oddball paradigm, two groups of participants (dialect and Standard German speakers) were presented with two words of a minimal pair ([ʃa̠ː2l] ‘stale’ vs. [ʃa̠ lˑ2] ‘acoustic noise’) which have inverted lengths for the vowel and the lateral but both bear Tone Accent 2 . Late mismatch negativity effects resulting from pre-attentive processing differ in amplitude and latency between the two groups of participants indicating varying phonological relevance of prosodic cues in these two varieties. Although both participant groups perceive Tone Accent 2 as a high tone, only the dialect group uses rules of tone-text-association within the minimal pair for lexical access.
Abstract
In this study, the influence of two dialectal prosodic features on the processing of lexical meaning during spoken word recognition was investigated in German dialect and non-dialect speakers. Previous studies in the field of German dialectology investigated differences between dialectal varieties and the Standard German variety by using mainly offline production and perception studies. The present study concentrates on brain responses to the phonological contrast of vowel quantity combined with tone accents, which occur in Germany exclusively in the Middle-Franconian dialect area (Moselle-Franconian, Ripuarian and southern Low Franconian dialects) but not in Standard German. In an event-related potential-study using a classic oddball paradigm, two groups of participants (dialect and Standard German speakers) were presented with two words of a minimal pair ([ʃa̠ː2l] ‘stale’ vs. [ʃa̠ lˑ2] ‘acoustic noise’) which have inverted lengths for the vowel and the lateral but both bear Tone Accent 2 . Late mismatch negativity effects resulting from pre-attentive processing differ in amplitude and latency between the two groups of participants indicating varying phonological relevance of prosodic cues in these two varieties. Although both participant groups perceive Tone Accent 2 as a high tone, only the dialect group uses rules of tone-text-association within the minimal pair for lexical access.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- The word in phonology: questions and answers 1
- The phonological word in German – Insights from an acoustic-phonetic study of complex words 13
- (Non-)separation of words in early medieval Irish and German manuscripts and the concept “word” 45
- Word-profiling strategies in Central Catalan, Itunyoso Trique, and Turkish 71
- The morphology-prosody interface in typically developing and language-impaired populations 95
- Schwa optionality and the prosodic shape of words and phrases 121
- Phonotactic principles and exposure in second language processing 153
- The interaction of vowel quantity and tonal cues in cognitive processing: An MMNstudy concerning dialectal and standard varieties 183
- The role of phonological structure in speech segmentation by infants and adults: a review and methodological considerations 213
- Neural bases of phonological representations: Empirical approaches and methods 241
- Index 273
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- The word in phonology: questions and answers 1
- The phonological word in German – Insights from an acoustic-phonetic study of complex words 13
- (Non-)separation of words in early medieval Irish and German manuscripts and the concept “word” 45
- Word-profiling strategies in Central Catalan, Itunyoso Trique, and Turkish 71
- The morphology-prosody interface in typically developing and language-impaired populations 95
- Schwa optionality and the prosodic shape of words and phrases 121
- Phonotactic principles and exposure in second language processing 153
- The interaction of vowel quantity and tonal cues in cognitive processing: An MMNstudy concerning dialectal and standard varieties 183
- The role of phonological structure in speech segmentation by infants and adults: a review and methodological considerations 213
- Neural bases of phonological representations: Empirical approaches and methods 241
- Index 273
