Effect of syllable structure on syllable counting in English by Japanese

Abstract

A previous study [Erickson, Akahane-Yamada, Tajima, and Matsumoto, Proceedings of ICPhS (1999)] showed that Japanese listeners have difficulty correctly counting the number of syllables in spoken English words, presumably because Japanese syllable structure is more restricted than English. A complex syllable like ‘‘stress’’ is not allowed in Japanese, and tends to get mapped onto many syllables, such as ‘‘su.to.re.su.’’ To test what factors contribute to Japanese listeners’ perception of syllables, a set of nonsense words varying in number and voicing of initial and final consonants, vowel type, and number of syllables, was presented auditorily to Japanese and American listeners. The task was to count the syllables in the words. American speakers counted the syllables with nearly 100% accuracy; Japanese listeners performed at about 50% accuracy. The number of initial consonants seems to have a stronger negative effect on the syllable counting performance by Japanese listeners than the number of final consonants, or vowel type. These findings suggest that onsets may play a stronger role than codas in Japanese listeners’ perception of the psychological weight of syllables, contrary to current notions of phonological weight which are sensitive to codas and ignore onsets. Implications for second-language speech perception/production learning will be discussed.