Volume 79, Issue 1

The current study extends traditional perceptual high-variability phonetic training (HVPT) in a foreign language learning context by implementing a comprehensive training paradigm that combines perception (discrimination and identification) and production (immediate repetition) training tasks and by exploring two potentially enhancing training conditions: the use of non-lexical training stimuli and the presence of masking noise during production training. We assessed training effects on L1-Spanish/Catalan bilingual EFL learners’ production of a difficult English vowel contrast (/æ/-/ʌ/). The participants ( N  = 62) were randomly assigned to either non-lexical ( N  = 24) or lexical ( N  = 24) training and were further subdivided into two groups, one trained in noise ( N  = 12) and one in silence ( N  = 12). An untrained control group ( N  = 14) was also tested. Training gains, measured through spectral distance scores (Euclidean distances) with respect to native speakers’ productions of /æ/ and /ʌ/, were assessed through delayed word and sentence repetition tasks. The results showed an advantage of non-lexical training over lexical training, detrimental effects of noise for participants trained with nonwords, but not for those trained with words, and less accurate production of vowels elicited in isolated words than in words embedded in sentences, where training gains were only observable for participants trained with nonwords.

The present study examined how prosody affects Japanese speakers’ processing of the polarity item darenimo ‘any/everyone’. Upward (LHHH pitch) and downward (HLLL pitch) prosody for darenimo associates with negative and positive polarity, respectively. In Study 1, a corpus search showed that darenimo is more often associated with negative than positive polarity. In Study 2, subjective acceptability judgments indicated that darenimo is also more likely to be perceived as acceptable by native Japanese speakers when used with negative polarity. In line with Study 2, Study 3 showed that upward prosody with negative polarity was more accurately and quickly processed than was downward prosody with either positive or negative polarity. These three studies showed a one-sided distribution of upward prosody with negative polarity, and further indicated that only upward prosody facilitates listeners’ processing of negation. Early heightened pitch of darenimo provides a cue to predict an ending negation - nai in the head-final Japanese language, resulting in faster speed and higher accuracy for the processing of negative sentences (i.e., a facilitation effect) compared to their corresponding affirmative sentences.

Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language which contrasts a rich set of coronal stops at dental and retroflex places of articulation across three laryngeal configurations. Moreover, all these stops occur contrastively in various positions (word-initially, -medially, and -finally). The goal of this study is to investigate how various coronal place and laryngeal contrasts are distinguished acoustically both within and across word positions. A number of temporal and spectral correlates were examined in data from 13 speakers of Eastern Punjabi: Voice Onset Time, release and closure durations, fundamental frequency, F1-F3 formants, spectral center of gravity and standard deviation, H1*-H2*, and cepstral peak prominence. The findings indicated that higher formants and spectral measures were most important for the classification of place contrasts across word positions, whereas laryngeal contrasts were reliably distinguished by durational and voice quality measures. Word-medially and -finally, F2 and F3 of the preceding vowels played a key role in distinguishing the dental and retroflex stops, while spectral noise measures were more important word-initially. The findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of factors involved in the maintenance of typologically rare and phonetically complex sets of place and laryngeal contrasts in the coronal stops of Indo-Aryan languages.