Perception of resyllabification in French.

M Gareth Gaskell , Elsa Spinelli (1) , Fanny Meunier (2)

1 LPNC - Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition
2 DDL - Dynamique Du Langage

In three experiments, we examined the effects of phonological resyllabification processes on the perception of French speech. Enchainment involves the resyllabification of a word-final consonant across a syllable boundary (e.g., in chaque avion, the /k/ crosses the syllable boundary to become syllable initial). Liaison involves a further process of realization of a latent consonant, alongside resyllabification (e.g., the /t/ in petit avion). If the syllable is a dominant unit of perception in French (Mehler, Dommergues, Frauenfelder, & Segui, 1981), these processes should cause problems for recognition of the following word. A cross-modal priming experiment showed no cost attached to either type of resyllabification in terms of reduced activation of the following word. Furthermore, word- and sequence-monitoring experiments again showed no cost and suggested that the recognition of vowel-initial words may be facilitated when they are preceded by a word that had undergone resyllabification through enchainment or liaison. We examine the sources of information that could underpin facilitation and propose a refinement of the syllable's role in the perception of French speech.

Domains: Psychology

M Gareth Gaskell, Elsa Spinelli, Fanny Meunier. Perception of resyllabification in French.. Memory and Cognition, 2002, 30 (5), pp.798-810. ⟨10.3758/bf03196435⟩. ⟨hal-00827624⟩