Durational cues for word segmentation Dutch

Abstract

Word segmentation is a prerequisite for word recognition and subsequent comprehension of a connected speech utterance. Linguistic and contextual information provides insufficient means to this end. In this paper, the contribution of acoustic-phonetic word boundary markers to perceived word segmentation is investigated. In the first experiment, phonetically ambiguous word combinations were presented; linguistic and contextual information could not contribute to word segmentation of these stimuli. Yet, the observed 80% accuracy shows that phonetic boundary cues are used effectively. Post-hoc acoustic analysis suggests that three durational parameters may affect perceived segmentation, viz. pre-boundary vowel decay time, intervocalic consonant duration, and post-boundary vowel rise time. In the second experiment, the latter two of these parameters were manipulated. Results show a significant effect of consonant duration on perceived segmentation, but no effect of vowel rise time. Uncontrolled boundary markers (presumably, boundary segments and allophonic variants) also provided positive boundary cues for /C ≠ V/ context. In conclusion, some word boundary markers contribute to the perceived word segmentation. Nevertheless, results also suggest that non-sensory (linguistic and contextual) information is more important for retrieving the intended word segmentation.