AN EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH TO SYLLABLE WEIGHT AND STRESS IN SPANISH
Open Access
- Author:
- Shelton, Michael
- Graduate Program:
- Spanish
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- April 30, 2007
- Committee Members:
- Henry J Gerfen, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Judith Fran Kroll, Committee Member
John Lipski, Committee Member
Barry Richard Page Jr., Committee Member
Nicolás Gutiérrez Palma, Committee Member - Keywords:
- experimental phonology
speech production
syllable weight
phonotactics
Spanish stress
psycholinguistics - Abstract:
- This work examines the cognitive representation of phonotactic constraints on Spanish stress via the collection of behavioral data. Critical stimuli in four experiments consist of nonwords that violate the Spanish stress window. Experiment 1 finds statistical differences among latency and accuracy data for stimuli that represent theoretically proscribed sequences, theoretically licit sequences that are unattested for diachronic reasons, and fully licit gaps. Experiments 2 and 3 find differential patterning of rising and falling diphthongs. Experiment 4 tests the time course of phonological encoding and evidences differential treatment of both diphthong types across delays in a delayed naming task. The data are interpreted as evidence in favor of sensitivity to a continuum of weight across the lexicon. The findings challenge traditional approaches to syllable weight which call for a categorical, binary light/heavy distinction. Rather, the results accord with a stochastic or probabilistic conception of the lexicon in which speakers of a language are able to track statistical patterns of extant combinations of sounds in order construct a phonological grammar that is gradient in nature. Implications for two prominent psycholinguistic models of speech production (Levelt et al., 1999; Dell 1986, 1988) are also discussed. Specifically, the findings challenge the proponents of each model to account better for the interaction of stress and syllable-level encoding, both as represented in the lexicon and across time during processing.