Work

Phonological Well-Formedness Constraints in Mandarin Phonotactics: Evidence From Lexical Decision

Year: 2023

Type: article

Abstract: This article investigates the role of phonological well-formedness constraints in Mandarin speakers' phonotactic grammar and how they affect online speech processing. Mandarin non-words can be categorized into systematic gaps and accidental gaps, depending on whether they violate principled phonotactic constraints based on the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP). Non-word acceptability judgment experiments have shown that systematic gaps received lower wordlikeness ratings than accidental gaps. Using a lexical decision task, this study found that systematic gaps were rejected significantly faster than accidental gaps, even after lexical statistics were taken into account. These findings thus provide converging evidence for the essential status of the OCP-based phonotactic constraints in Mandarin speakers' phonological knowledge.

Source: Language and Speech

DOI: 10.1177/00238309231182363

Authors: Shuxiao Gong, Jie Zhang, Robert Fiorentino

Institutions: Beijing Language and Culture University, University of Kansas

Language: English

Topic: Phonetics and Phonology Research

Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: bronze

Funders: Beijing Language and Culture University, Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities

Award: G3456120516