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Language specific listening of Japanese geminate consonants: a cross-linguistic study

Various aspects of linguistic experience influence the way we segment, represent, and process speech signals. The Japanese phonetic and orthographic systems represent geminate consonants (double consonants, e.g., /ss/, /kk/) in a unique way compared to other languages: one abstract representation is...

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Autores principales: Sadakata, Makiko, Shingai, Mizuki, Sulpizio, Simone, Brandmeyer, Alex, Sekiyama, Kaoru
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4263088/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25566113
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01422
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author Sadakata, Makiko
Shingai, Mizuki
Sulpizio, Simone
Brandmeyer, Alex
Sekiyama, Kaoru
author_facet Sadakata, Makiko
Shingai, Mizuki
Sulpizio, Simone
Brandmeyer, Alex
Sekiyama, Kaoru
author_sort Sadakata, Makiko
collection PubMed
description Various aspects of linguistic experience influence the way we segment, represent, and process speech signals. The Japanese phonetic and orthographic systems represent geminate consonants (double consonants, e.g., /ss/, /kk/) in a unique way compared to other languages: one abstract representation is used to characterize the first part of geminate consonants despite the acoustic difference between two distinct realizations of geminate consonants (silence in the case of e.g., stop consonants and elongation in the case of fricative consonants). The current study tests whether this discrepancy between abstract representations and acoustic realizations influences how native speakers of Japanese perceive geminate consonants. The experiments used pseudo words containing either the geminate consonant /ss/ or a manipulated version in which the first part was replaced by silence /_s/. The sound /_s/ is acoustically similar to /ss/, yet does not occur in everyday speech. Japanese listeners demonstrated a bias to group these two types into the same category while Italian and Dutch listeners distinguished them. The results thus confirmed that distinguishing fricative geminate consonants with silence from those with sustained frication is not crucial for Japanese native listening. Based on this observation, we propose that native speakers of Japanese tend to segment geminated consonants into two parts and that the first portion of fricative geminates is perceptually similar to a silent duration. This representation is compatible with both Japanese orthography and phonology. Unlike previous studies that were inconclusive in how native speakers segment geminate consonants, our study demonstrated a relatively strong effect of Japanese specific listening. Thus the current experimental methods may open up new lines of investigation into the relationship between development of phonological representation, orthography and speech perception.
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spelling pubmed-42630882015-01-06 Language specific listening of Japanese geminate consonants: a cross-linguistic study Sadakata, Makiko Shingai, Mizuki Sulpizio, Simone Brandmeyer, Alex Sekiyama, Kaoru Front Psychol Psychology Various aspects of linguistic experience influence the way we segment, represent, and process speech signals. The Japanese phonetic and orthographic systems represent geminate consonants (double consonants, e.g., /ss/, /kk/) in a unique way compared to other languages: one abstract representation is used to characterize the first part of geminate consonants despite the acoustic difference between two distinct realizations of geminate consonants (silence in the case of e.g., stop consonants and elongation in the case of fricative consonants). The current study tests whether this discrepancy between abstract representations and acoustic realizations influences how native speakers of Japanese perceive geminate consonants. The experiments used pseudo words containing either the geminate consonant /ss/ or a manipulated version in which the first part was replaced by silence /_s/. The sound /_s/ is acoustically similar to /ss/, yet does not occur in everyday speech. Japanese listeners demonstrated a bias to group these two types into the same category while Italian and Dutch listeners distinguished them. The results thus confirmed that distinguishing fricative geminate consonants with silence from those with sustained frication is not crucial for Japanese native listening. Based on this observation, we propose that native speakers of Japanese tend to segment geminated consonants into two parts and that the first portion of fricative geminates is perceptually similar to a silent duration. This representation is compatible with both Japanese orthography and phonology. Unlike previous studies that were inconclusive in how native speakers segment geminate consonants, our study demonstrated a relatively strong effect of Japanese specific listening. Thus the current experimental methods may open up new lines of investigation into the relationship between development of phonological representation, orthography and speech perception. Frontiers Media S.A. 2014-12-11 /pmc/articles/PMC4263088/ /pubmed/25566113 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01422 Text en Copyright © 2014 Sadakata, Shingai, Sulpizio, Brandmeyer and Sekiyama. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Sadakata, Makiko
Shingai, Mizuki
Sulpizio, Simone
Brandmeyer, Alex
Sekiyama, Kaoru
Language specific listening of Japanese geminate consonants: a cross-linguistic study
title Language specific listening of Japanese geminate consonants: a cross-linguistic study
title_full Language specific listening of Japanese geminate consonants: a cross-linguistic study
title_fullStr Language specific listening of Japanese geminate consonants: a cross-linguistic study
title_full_unstemmed Language specific listening of Japanese geminate consonants: a cross-linguistic study
title_short Language specific listening of Japanese geminate consonants: a cross-linguistic study
title_sort language specific listening of japanese geminate consonants: a cross-linguistic study
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4263088/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25566113
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01422
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