Three experiments were carried out to investigate the role of sublexical units in Dutch single word production. In Levelt's (1989, Levelt, Roelofs, & Meyer, 1999; Roelofs, 1997) speech production model, it is assumed that articulatory units of syllabic size form the basic components of articulation. Here, we were particularly interested in the question whether or not syllabes play a role at the level of the phonology/phonetics interface during speech production. A version of the implicit priming paradigm (Janssen, 1999; Meyer, 1990, 1991) was used in which participants had to produce one out of three or four previously learned target words in each test trial. In all conditions, targets were bisyllabic Dutch words which differed in their consonant-vowel (hereafter CV-) structure. Three different CV-structures (CVV, CVC, CCVV) were investigated separately in three experiments. All experiments contained so-called "constant" and "variable" sets; items within one set were all derived from the same verb stem, therefore segmental overlap is provided. The CV-structure of the first syllable was either the same across items in constant sets, e.g., lei.den ([to] lead; CVV), lei.dde (led; CVV), lei.der (leader; CVV), lei.dend (leading; CVV), or changed in variable sets, e.g., ro.ken ([to] smoke;CVV), ROOK.te (smoked; CVVC), ro.ker (smoker; CVV), ro.kend (smoking; CVV). The constant and variable sets contained eight different verb stems in each of the three experiments. Every verb stem was presented in a three- and in a four item-set in both conditions. The four item-sets contained all of the items quoted above whereas in the three-item sets the past tense form was excluded. Prompt words for every condition were derived from the strong verb staan ([to] stand), stond (stood), staander (stand), staande (standing). In the data analysis, the past tense form in both of the four-item sets were excluded. The voice onset latencies of the remaining three forms were compared to those of their corresponding three-item sets. Difference scores (subtraction of the three-item set RTs from the [original] four-item set RTs) were found to be significantly higher for the variable sets compared to the constant sets. The odd man out with the deviating CV-structure spoiled the preparation effect for the whole set. These results suggest that speakers use the syllable as processing unit in speech production and that knowledge about the syllabic structure seems to facilitate the preparation for an utterance.
References
Janssen, D. (1999). Producing past and plural inflections. PhD dissertation, Nijmegen University.
Levelt, W. J. M. (1989). Speaking. From intention to articulation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Levelt, W. J. M., Roelofs, A. & Meyer, A. S. (1999). A theory of lexical access in speech production. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 1-75.
Levelt, W. J. M., & Wheeldon, L. (1994). Do speakers have access to mental syllabary? Cognition, 50, 239-269.
Meyer, A. S. (1990). The time course of phonological encoding in language production: The encoding of successive syllables of a word. Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 524-545.
Meyer, A. S. (1991). The time course of phonological encoding in language production: Phonological encoding inside a syllable. Journal of Memory and Language, 30, 69-89.
Roelofs, A. (1997) Syllabification in speech production: Evaluation of WEAVER. Language and Cognitive Processes, 12, 657-693.