Phonotactic regularities in the segmentation of spoken Italian

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Phonetics
• Speech Perception

Background:

• Speech segmentation is crucial for language comprehension.
• Phonotactic constraints, rules governing sound sequences, may aid in identifying word boundaries.
• Previous research indicates varying reliance on phonotactic cues across languages.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role of consonantal and vocalic phonotactic cues in spoken Italian word segmentation.
• To determine if Italian listeners utilize phonotactic information for syllable versus word boundary detection.

Main Methods:

• Five word-spotting experiments were conducted using nonsense Italian word strings.
• Listeners' reaction times were measured when target words were aligned or misaligned with phonotactically determined syllable boundaries.
• Sensitivity to phonotactic cues signaling lexical boundaries was specifically tested.

Main Results:

• Participants were significantly slower in detecting target words when their onsets or offsets were misaligned with syllable boundaries.
• This effect persisted even for phonotactic sequences occurring only word-medially.
• No significant advantage was found for phonotactic cues specifically indicating word boundaries over syllable boundaries.

Conclusions:

• Phonotactic information plays a role in spoken Italian speech segmentation, primarily through syllable boundary cues.
• Italian listeners appear to make minimal use of phonotactic cues that specifically signal lexical (word) boundaries.
• The findings highlight the importance of syllabic structure in spoken word recognition.