Abstract
This study examines how American English (AE) speakers categorize Hindi laryngeal and place of articulation contrasts. These results are interpreted with respect to the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM) [Best, ‘‘A direct realist view of cross-language speech perception,’’ in Speech Perception and Linguistic Experience: Issues in Cross Language Research (York Press, Inc., 1995), pp. 171–204]. Accuracy and reaction time data were obtained for discrimination and identification of Hindi bilabial and dental phonation contrasts and the retroflex-dental place contrast. Subjects included both AE speakers and a control Hindi speaker group. Discrimination accuracy averaged across the subjects for the phonation contrasts was nativelike while accuracy for the retroflex-dental contrast was significantly lower but above chance. Overall, the reaction time was inversely proportional to discrimination accuracy. For some subjects discrimination performance for the retroflex-dental contrast was nativelike. However, the reaction time for those subjects was significantly higher than that of other speakers. In general, the reaction time was higher for the retroflex-dental contrast than for the other contrasts.
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