Learning and recognition of phonological variants
Coda /t/ and /d/ can be realized in a number of ways in American English. In in post-tonic contexts, they can both be produced as a tap/flap. Using the head-turn-preference procedure, we investigated whether or not 12-month-old English learning infants interpret a surface flap/tap as an instance of an underlying /d/ or /t/ in words such as patting or padding. Our results indicate that 12-month-olds segment out pad but not pat from an inflected form with a tap. This suggests that at 12-months, infants have only learned the [d ~ tap] mapping and have yet to learn the [t ~ tap] mapping. We interpret this is as a learning bias to posit alternations between more perceptually similar sounds first. This work is in collaboration with Megha Sundara, Yun Jung Kim (Emory) and James White (UCL, UK).
My MA thesis further investigates the ability of 18-month-old toddlers to recognize tapped variants of familiar words. In an inter-modal preferential looking task, using eyetracking, we found that at 18-months, toddlers do not treat tapped variants as mispronunciations, and succeed at recognizing tapped variants of both /t/ and /d/-words in the appropriate context.
Another set of studies looks at the importance of phonological context in the online processing of phonological variants in word recognition, using tapping in American English as a case study. It further investigates whether or not perceptual similarity to an underlying form can mitigate any effects of a non-licensing context on recognition.
More recently, Marc Garellek (UCSD) and I are investigating the effect of glottalization on word recognition of American English stops.
Coda /t/ and /d/ can be realized in a number of ways in American English. In in post-tonic contexts, they can both be produced as a tap/flap. Using the head-turn-preference procedure, we investigated whether or not 12-month-old English learning infants interpret a surface flap/tap as an instance of an underlying /d/ or /t/ in words such as patting or padding. Our results indicate that 12-month-olds segment out pad but not pat from an inflected form with a tap. This suggests that at 12-months, infants have only learned the [d ~ tap] mapping and have yet to learn the [t ~ tap] mapping. We interpret this is as a learning bias to posit alternations between more perceptually similar sounds first. This work is in collaboration with Megha Sundara, Yun Jung Kim (Emory) and James White (UCL, UK).
My MA thesis further investigates the ability of 18-month-old toddlers to recognize tapped variants of familiar words. In an inter-modal preferential looking task, using eyetracking, we found that at 18-months, toddlers do not treat tapped variants as mispronunciations, and succeed at recognizing tapped variants of both /t/ and /d/-words in the appropriate context.
Another set of studies looks at the importance of phonological context in the online processing of phonological variants in word recognition, using tapping in American English as a case study. It further investigates whether or not perceptual similarity to an underlying form can mitigate any effects of a non-licensing context on recognition.
More recently, Marc Garellek (UCSD) and I are investigating the effect of glottalization on word recognition of American English stops.
- Chong, A.J. & Sundara, M. (2016). Perceptual similarity modulates online compensation for phonological variation. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting on Phonology 2. [pdf]
- Chong, A.J. & Sundara, M. (2015). 18-month-olds compensate for a phonological alternation. Proceedings of Boston University Conference on Language Development 39. [pdf]
