Free choice task effects in cross-linguistic stop perception

Abstract

This paper examines the identification of stop place and secondary articulation using a free choice task. Russian syllable-initial and syllable-final stops /p pj t tj/ in nonsense utterances were presented to Russian and Japanese listeners (N=30). Correct identification rates for place and secondary articulation of the target consonants were determined based on written responses (in Cyrillic or Katakana). Both groups of listeners showed better identification of syllable-initial stops compared to syllable-final stops. Among the consonants, /p/ was identified better, and /pj/ was identified worse than the other stops. Native listeners performed better than non-native listeners. The overall correct identification rates were lower than (yet strongly correlated with) the rates previously obtained with the same stimuli using a forced choice phoneme identification task. The lower identification rates in the current study can be explained in part by the errors involving the segmentation and syllabification of palatalized stops. Thus, the palatal articulation of the syllable-final palatalized /pj/ was often interpreted as independent of the stop (e.g., /tapj api/ rendered as /taj papi/ or /tjap api/). It is concluded that the free choice task can successfully complement the forced choice task, providing additional information about the perception of secondary palatalization. [Supported by SSHRC.]