Cargando…

Phonological Units in Spoken Word Production: Insights from Cantonese

Evidence from previous psycholinguistic research suggests that phonological units such as phonemes have a privileged role during phonological planning in Dutch and English (aka the segment-retrieval hypothesis). However, the syllable-retrieval hypothesis previously proposed for Mandarin assumes that...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Wong, Andus Wing-Kuen, Huang, Jian, Chen, Hsuan-Chih
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3492434/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23144965
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0048776
_version_ 1782249135053733888
author Wong, Andus Wing-Kuen
Huang, Jian
Chen, Hsuan-Chih
author_facet Wong, Andus Wing-Kuen
Huang, Jian
Chen, Hsuan-Chih
author_sort Wong, Andus Wing-Kuen
collection PubMed
description Evidence from previous psycholinguistic research suggests that phonological units such as phonemes have a privileged role during phonological planning in Dutch and English (aka the segment-retrieval hypothesis). However, the syllable-retrieval hypothesis previously proposed for Mandarin assumes that only the entire syllable unit (without the tone) can be prepared in advance in speech planning. Using Cantonese Chinese as a test case, the present study was conducted to investigate whether the syllable-retrieval hypothesis can be applied to other Chinese spoken languages. In four implicit priming (form-preparation) experiments, participants were asked to learn various sets of prompt-response di-syllabic word pairs and to utter the corresponding response word upon seeing each prompt. The response words in a block were either phonologically related (homogeneous) or unrelated (heterogeneous). Participants' naming responses were significantly faster in the homogeneous than in the heterogeneous conditions when the response words shared the same word-initial syllable (without the tone) (Exps.1 and 4) or body (Exps.3 and 4), but not when they shared merely the same word-initial phoneme (Exp.2). Furthermore, the priming effect observed in the syllable-related condition was significantly larger than that in the body-related condition (Exp. 4). Although the observed syllable priming effects and the null effect of word-initial phoneme are consistent with the syllable-retrieval hypothesis, the body-related (sub-syllabic) priming effects obtained in this Cantonese study are not. These results suggest that the syllable-retrieval hypothesis is not generalizable to all Chinese spoken languages and that both syllable and sub-syllabic constituents are legitimate planning units in Cantonese speech production.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-3492434
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2012
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-34924342012-11-09 Phonological Units in Spoken Word Production: Insights from Cantonese Wong, Andus Wing-Kuen Huang, Jian Chen, Hsuan-Chih PLoS One Research Article Evidence from previous psycholinguistic research suggests that phonological units such as phonemes have a privileged role during phonological planning in Dutch and English (aka the segment-retrieval hypothesis). However, the syllable-retrieval hypothesis previously proposed for Mandarin assumes that only the entire syllable unit (without the tone) can be prepared in advance in speech planning. Using Cantonese Chinese as a test case, the present study was conducted to investigate whether the syllable-retrieval hypothesis can be applied to other Chinese spoken languages. In four implicit priming (form-preparation) experiments, participants were asked to learn various sets of prompt-response di-syllabic word pairs and to utter the corresponding response word upon seeing each prompt. The response words in a block were either phonologically related (homogeneous) or unrelated (heterogeneous). Participants' naming responses were significantly faster in the homogeneous than in the heterogeneous conditions when the response words shared the same word-initial syllable (without the tone) (Exps.1 and 4) or body (Exps.3 and 4), but not when they shared merely the same word-initial phoneme (Exp.2). Furthermore, the priming effect observed in the syllable-related condition was significantly larger than that in the body-related condition (Exp. 4). Although the observed syllable priming effects and the null effect of word-initial phoneme are consistent with the syllable-retrieval hypothesis, the body-related (sub-syllabic) priming effects obtained in this Cantonese study are not. These results suggest that the syllable-retrieval hypothesis is not generalizable to all Chinese spoken languages and that both syllable and sub-syllabic constituents are legitimate planning units in Cantonese speech production. Public Library of Science 2012-11-07 /pmc/articles/PMC3492434/ /pubmed/23144965 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0048776 Text en © 2012 Wong et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Wong, Andus Wing-Kuen
Huang, Jian
Chen, Hsuan-Chih
Phonological Units in Spoken Word Production: Insights from Cantonese
title Phonological Units in Spoken Word Production: Insights from Cantonese
title_full Phonological Units in Spoken Word Production: Insights from Cantonese
title_fullStr Phonological Units in Spoken Word Production: Insights from Cantonese
title_full_unstemmed Phonological Units in Spoken Word Production: Insights from Cantonese
title_short Phonological Units in Spoken Word Production: Insights from Cantonese
title_sort phonological units in spoken word production: insights from cantonese
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3492434/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23144965
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0048776
work_keys_str_mv AT wonganduswingkuen phonologicalunitsinspokenwordproductioninsightsfromcantonese
AT huangjian phonologicalunitsinspokenwordproductioninsightsfromcantonese
AT chenhsuanchih phonologicalunitsinspokenwordproductioninsightsfromcantonese