Abstract ▼ AI-Helper

This experimental study has a goal to explore the perceptual sensitivity to phonetic evidence such as duration, phrase accent, or pause in disambiguation. We argue that the realization of the intonational phrasal boundary at the meaningful grammatical boundary in structurally ambiguous sentences fac...

This experimental study has a goal to explore the perceptual sensitivity to phonetic evidence such as duration, phrase accent, or pause in disambiguation. We argue that the realization of the intonational phrasal boundary at the meaningful grammatical boundary in structurally ambiguous sentences facilitates English native listeners to distinguish the meanings of the ambiguous sentences. Moreover, the duration of the phrase-final syllable, pitch range reset, or phrasal tones also provides listeners with important phonetic evidence in disambiguation. In our perception experiment, however, Korean English learners largely depend on the realization of pause. In the results from the perception experiment, all of the groups showed an increase in the response time from the perception of no pause to pause realization. This means that pause at the phonological phrasal boundary plays a role of facilitator to English native speakers with other prosodic cues such as duration, pitch accent, or phrasal tones, while an absolutely important cue to Korean English learners.

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