The challenge of learning new highly variable prosodic categories: Training English listeners on pitch accent in Tokyo Japanese.

Irina A. Shport; Susan Guion‐Anderson

doi:10.1121/1.3508885

The challenge of learning new highly variable prosodic categories: Training English listeners on pitch accent in Tokyo Japanese.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America ◽

10.1121/1.3508885 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 128 (4) ◽

pp. 2477-2477

Author(s):

Irina A. Shport ◽

Susan Guion‐Anderson

Keyword(s):

Pitch Accent ◽

Tokyo Japanese ◽

Prosodic Categories

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TRAINING ENGLISH LISTENERS TO IDENTIFY PITCH-ACCENT PATTERNS IN TOKYO JAPANESE

Studies in Second Language Acquisition ◽

10.1017/s027226311500039x ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 38 (4) ◽

pp. 739-769 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Irina A. Shport

Keyword(s):

Language Learning ◽

Training Group ◽

Pitch Accent ◽

Identification Accuracy ◽

Control Group ◽

Immediate Feedback ◽

Language Bias ◽

New Words ◽

Tokyo Japanese ◽

Pitch Patterns

The high-variability training paradigm (multiple words, phonetic contexts, and talkers) has been successful for perceptual learning of tone contrasts. Here, it is extended to training native English listeners on Tokyo Japanese pitch-accent contrasts. Participants had no previous experience with lexically contrastive pitch patterns. They learned to identify three pitch patterns in disyllabic Japanese words: 1st-syllable accented, 2nd-syllable accented, and unaccented. Immediate feedback was provided to the training group but not to the control group. The results showed an effect of training on pitch-pattern identification accuracy that was also generalized to new words spoken in new contexts. In contrast, the control group improved only on the 1st-syllable accented pattern. Error analysis suggested that the unaccented pattern is the most difficult to identify. The results are discussed in terms of native language bias and individual bias affecting second language learning in the prosodic domain.

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Prototypical Predicates Have Unmarked Phonology

Proceedings of the Annual Meetings on Phonology ◽

10.3765/amp.v1i1.37 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jennifer L. Smith

Keyword(s):

Pitch Accent ◽

Phonological Processes ◽

Least Privilege ◽

Unaccusative Verbs ◽

Tokyo Japanese ◽

Phonological Contrasts ◽

Category Effects ◽

General Scale

Recent work recognizes that phonological processes and phonotactics can be sensitive to lexical category. Moreover, there are strong cross-linguistic tendencies concerning the nature of phonological differences between categories. One such tendency is a hierarchy of phonological privilege, N > A > V: nouns tend to license more phonological contrasts and tolerate more marked structures than adjectives, with verbs showing the least privilege and therefore the greatest phonological unmarkedness.This paper proposes that the N > A > V hierarchy of phonological privilege derives from a more general scale, according to which protypical designators (or arguments) have more phonological privilege, and prototypical predicates show greater unmarkedness. This approach predicts that even within a given lexical category, such as V, category members that are more prototypical as predicates should show greater unmarkedness.A case study is presented in support of this proposal. In Tokyo Japanese, unergative verbs (more-prototypical predicates) show greater phonological unmarkedness with respect to pitch accent than unaccusative verbs (less-prototypical predicates). Some preliminary implications of this finding for our understanding of lexical-category effects in phonology, and of the role of markedness scales in the grammar, are also considered.

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