Repetition and Recognition of Nonsense

Abstract

A most important feature of the perceptual capacities contributing to the effective reception of linguistic events is that, even when the events are without lexical status for the listener, he can nonetheless assign a nonlexical, that is to say, phonemic identity to them. In order to examine the process of phonemic identification, particularly in the light of the articulatory reference conceptualization of this process posited by the Haskins group, CCVC syllables were developed that, although composed of only general American English phonemes, did not conform to the restrictions on English syllable formation. Carrier phrases were also developed for each syllable within which it was compliant with these restrictions, so that, for example, the carrier for /ŋziž/ was /ɡʌŋziz_ɔŋ/. Recordings of the syllables, both in and out of carriers, were presented to listeners for repetition. In addition, a recognition test was conducted in which the listeners were required to decide which, among systematic phonemic departures from them, were the events that they had previously repeated. The contingencies between repetition and recognition performances for the two sets of events are discussed.