A ‘Pause-Break’ Task For Eliciting Syllable Boundary Judgments from Literate and Illiterate Speakers: Preliminary Results for Five Diverse Languages

Abstract

A new oral ‘pause-break’ task is described for eliciting judgments about syllable boundaries from speakers of languages of diverse types who have potentially limited educational and/or literacy levels. Results are presented from five different languages, including English. The English results replicate the findings from previous studies using other techniques, while the following generalizations follow from the application of the technique to Arabic, Blackfoot, Korean, and Swiss German: There is (1) a widespread tendency to treat single intervocalic consonants as syllable onsets and (2) an equally broad tendency to break between the two members of intervocalic CC clusters. The treatment of intervocalic geminates or long consonants (as in Arabic and Blackfoot) seems to vary as a function of educational level: In general, the better educated, literate speakers interpret them as disegments and treat them as in (2) above, while the semiliterate subjects often interpret them as single segments and treat them as in (1). The technique itself seems to have proved itself as suitable for use with speakers of a wide range of educational levels and languages.