Contextual predictability influences word and morpheme duration in a morphologically complex language (Kaqchikel...

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Phonetics
• Psycholinguistics

Background:

• Phonetic variation is influenced by probability.
• Contextual probability affects speech production, known as the probabilistic reduction effect.
• This effect is well-documented in majority languages like English.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the probabilistic reduction effect in Kaqchikel Mayan, a language with rich morphology.
• To examine if contextual predictability influences the phonetic duration of words and morphemes in Kaqchikel.
• To compare findings with previous studies on Indo-European languages.

Main Methods:

• Corpus analysis of Kaqchikel Mayan speech data.
• Examination of word and morpheme predictability within local linguistic contexts.
• Measurement of phonetic duration of linguistic units.

Main Results:

• Contextual predictability significantly affects word duration in Kaqchikel.
• The effect on duration differs between lexical and function words.
• Contextual predictability also influences the duration of certain prefixes, indicating multi-level effects.

Conclusions:

• The probabilistic reduction effect is present in Kaqchikel Mayan, extending findings beyond Indo-European languages.
• Morphological richness does not preclude phonetic reduction based on predictability.
• Further research on diverse languages is crucial for understanding universal phonetic principles.