Production constraints on learning novel onset phonotactics.

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Speech Perception
• Language Acquisition

Background:

• Phonotactic learning is crucial for acquiring novel speech patterns.
• A markedness effect, where certain patterns are learned more easily, is observed in phonotactic learning.
• The role of production constraints in phonotactic learning remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether production factors constrain phonotactic learning in adult English speakers.
• To determine if coarticulatory patterns influence the markedness effect in phonotactic learning.
• To examine the interplay between perception and production in language learning.

Main Methods:

• Acoustic analysis of consonant-consonant coarticulation in nonword stimuli.
• Phonotactic learning experiments using naturally produced and acoustically manipulated nonwords.
• Correlation analysis between listeners' self-production coarticulation and their learning of novel sequences.

Main Results:

• Sonority-rising sequences exhibited greater coarticulation than -plateauing sequences.
• Listeners learned novel sonority-rising onsets more readily than novel -plateauing onsets.
• Listeners' own coarticulatory patterns predicted their learning of novel phonotactic sequences.

Conclusions:

• Production factors, particularly coarticulatory patterns, constrain phonotactic learning.
• The perception-production loop moderates statistical learning effects in language.
• Findings highlight the integrated nature of speech perception and production in language acquisition.