조지어스 황 교수

This study examines relative weighting of two acoustic cues, vowel duration and spectra, in the perception of high front vowels by Japanese learners of English. Studies found that Japanese speakers rely heavily on duration to distinguish /iː/ and /ɪ/ in American English (AmE) as influenced by phonemic length in Japanese /ii/ and /i/, while spectral cues are more important for native AmE speakers. However, little is known as to whether and how this non-native perceptual weighting can change as a

Formal semantic analyses often take words to be minimal building blocks for the purposes of compositionality. But various recent theories of morphology and syntax have converged on the view that there is no demarcation line corresponding to the word level. The same conclusion has emerged from the compositional semantics of superlatives. In the spirit of extending compositionality below the word level, this paper explores how a small set of particles (Japanese ka and mo, Chinese dou, and Hungaria

High vowel devoicing in Japanese, where /i, u/ in a C₁VC₂ sequence devoice when both C₁ and C₂ are voiceless, has been studied extensively, but factors that contribute to the devoiced vowels' likelihood of complete deletion is still debated. This study examines the effects of phonotactic predictability on the deletion of devoiced vowels. Native Tokyo Japanese speakers (N = 22) were recorded in a sound-attenuated booth reading sentences containing lexic

This study investigates the predictions of second language (L2) acquisition models — SLM, PAM-L2, and L2LP — on how native (L1) Japanese speakers implement the spectral and temporal aspects of L2 American English vowel categories. Data were obtained from 102 L1 Japanese speakers in the J-AESOP corpus, which also includes nativelikeness judgments by trained phoneticians. Spectrally, speakers judged to be less nativelike showed a strong influence of L1-L2 category assimilation, except L2 /æː/ whos

One of the primary questions of second language (L2) acquisition research is how a new sound category is formed to allow for an L2 contrast that does not exist in the learner's first language (L1). Most models rely crucially on perceived (dis)similarities between L1 and L2 sounds, but a precise definition of what constitutes “similarity” has long proven elusive. The current study proposes that perceived cross-linguistic similarities are based on feature-level representations, not segmental categ

Japanese speakers systematically devoice or delete high vowels [i, u] between two voiceless consonants. Japanese listeners also report perceiving the same high vowels between consonant clusters even in the absence of a vocalic segment. Although perceptual vowel epenthesis has been described primarily as a phonotactic repair strategy, where a phonetically minimal vowel is epenthesized by default, few studies have investigated how the predictability of a vowel in a given context affects the choice

Cochabamba Quechua disallows pairs of ejectives within roots (*[ k ’ it ’ɑ]), but this structure may arise across word boundaries, e.g. [ misk ’ i t ’ɑ nt ɑ] ‘good bread’. This paper presents an acoustic study of these phonotactically legal, trans-vocalic ejective pairs that occur at word boundaries. It is found that Cochabamba Quechua speakers de-ejectivize one of the two ejectives in such phrases a significant portion of the time, and that, in correct productions with two ejectives, the period

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt:A series of studies by Dupoux and colleagues (Dupoux et al. (1999), Peperkamp & Dupoux (2003), Vendelin & Peperkamp (2004), Peperkamp (2005)) have proposed that loanword adaptation, which refers to the transformation words go through when they are borrowed from a source language (L2) to a borrowing language (L1), happens entirely during perception. They claim that when an L1 speaker is given an acoustic signal that contains segments that ar

Illusory epenthesis is a phenomenon in which listeners report hearing a vowel between a phonotactically illegal consonant cluster, even in the complete absence of vocalic cues. The present study uses Japanese as a test case and investigates the respective roles of three mechanisms that have been claimed to drive the choice of epenthetic vowel-phonetic minimality, phonotactic predictability, and phonological alternations-and propose that they share the same rational goal of searching for the vowe

Speech perception patterns are strongly influenced by one's native phonology. It is generally accepted that native English listeners rely primarily on spectral cues when perceiving vowels, making limited use of duration cues because English lacks phonemic vowel length. However, the literature on vowel perception by English listeners shows a marked bias toward American English, with the phonological diversity among different varieties of English largely overlooked. The current study investigates

High vowel devoicing in Japanese, where unaccented /i, u/ in a C1VC2 sequence reduce when both C1 and C2 are voiceless, has been studied extensively, but whether the target vowel is truly devoiced (oral gesture is maintained) or deleted completely (oral gesture and voicing are both lost) is still debated. This study examines the effects of vowel predictability on the degree of vowel reduction. Native Japanese speakers (N = 8) were recorded in a sound-proof booth reading sentences containing lexi

High vowel devoicing is a productive process in Japanese, where /i, u/ become unphonated between voiceless obstruents. Recent studies have shown that the vowels can completely delete as a result of the process, resulting in surface consonant clusters. This seemingly conflicts with the strong CV phonotactic preference that has repeatedly been shown in both phonological and psycholinguistic studies of Japanese. This paper proposes that the apparent conflict can be resolved by having phonotactic re