Identification of French vowels

Abstract

Studies of the identification of American English vowels have found that vowels are better identified in consonantal context than in isolation [W. Strange, R. R. Verbrugge, D. P. Shankweiler, and T. R. Edman, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 60, 213–24 (1976)]. This effect of consonantal context has been attributed to dynamic acoustic information in formant transitions. It has also been hypothesized that phonological factors allow syllable-medial vowels to be better identified. In particular, lax vowels are linguistically inappropriate in isolation, therefore identification of them should be poorer in that context. Since phonological factors are language-specific, one might approach the problem by looking at a language whose phonological system is different from English. French is a language where one vowel/e/that is appropriate in syllable-final position is not appropriate medially. This is a phonological constraint that is the converse of English. Four native speakers of French produced the 11 stressed, oral vowels of French. Comparision was made of the identification of the vowels by native French and American subjects. Influences of phonological and acoustic factors are discussed. [Supported by NIMH, NICHD.]