26:T433,

In the first part of this study, we measured the alignment (relative to segmental landmarks) of the low F0 turning points between the accentual fall and the final boundary rise in short Dutch falling-rising questions of the form Do you live in [place name]? produced as read speech in a laboratory setting. We found that the alignment of these turning points is affected by the location of a postaccentual secondary stressed syllable if one is present. This is consistent with the findings and analyses of Grice, Ladd, & Arvaniti, 2000 (Phonology 17, 143—185), suggesting that the low turning points are the phonetic reflex of a “phrase accent.” In the second part of this study, we measured the low turning points in falling-rising questions produced in a task-oriented dialog setting and found that their alignment is affected in the same way as in the read speech data. This suggests that read speech experiments are a valid means of investigating the phonetic details of intonation contours.

27:T48a,

Two experiments investigated the influence of sentential context on the relative ease of deriving a particular meaning for novel and familiar compounds. Experiment 1 determined which of two possible meanings was preferred for a set of novel phrases. Experiment 2 used both novel (e.g., brain sponge) and familiar compounds (e.g., bug spray). The compounds appeared in a sentential context that supported either the dominant or subdominant meaning. Next, participants saw either the dominant or subdominant definition and indicated whether it was plausible. When the definition was consistent with the preceding sentence, the participants were more likely to consider the definition plausible regardless of whether the compound was novel or familiar, although this difference was more pronounced for novel phrases than for familiar phrases. In terms of response times, the effect of sentential context also depended on the degree of dominance. The data suggest that the interpretation of compounds is affected by at least two sources of information: sentential context and the relative dominance of the preferred meaning.

28:T43d,

The involvement of syllables in the perception of spoken English has traditionally been regarded as minimal because of ambiguous syllable boundaries and overriding rhythmic segmentation cues. The present experiments test the perceptual separability of syllables and vowels in spoken English using the migration paradigm. Experiments 1 and 2 show that syllables migrate considerably more than full and reduced vowels, and this effect is not influenced by the lexicality of the stimuli, their stress pattern, or the syllables' position relative to the edge of the stimuli. Experiment 3 confirms the predominance of syllable migration against a pseudosyllable baseline, and provides some evidence that syllable migration depends on whether syllable boundaries are clear or ambiguous. Consistent with this hypothesis, Experiment 4 demonstrates that CVC syllables migrate more in stimuli with a clear CVC-initial structure than in ambisyllabic stimuli. Together, the data suggest that syllables have a greater contribution to the perception of spoken English than previously assumed.

29:T68e,