Effects of subphonemic variation depend on lexical competitor environment

Abstract

A cross-modal identity priming experiment examined whether subphonemic variation (length of prevoicing in syllable-initial stops in Dutch) influences lexical access. Word and nonword targets began with voiced plosives. They were chosen so that half of them became words when the initial voiced plosive was replaced by its voiceless counterpart, while the other half changed into nonwords. The visual targets were preceded by auditory word or nonword primes which were either phonologically unrelated or identical to the target. The initial plosives of the identity primes had 0, 6, or 12 periods of prevoicing, but all were identified as voiced. This VOT manipulation had no effect for word targets: lexical decisions were faster after all three identity primes than after the unrelated primes. However, reaction times to nonword targets with word competitors (e.g., BRINS, with the competitor PRINS ‘‘prince’’) were slower when preceded by identity primes without prevoicing than when preceded by primes starting with 6 or 12 periods of prevoicing. This suggests that voiceless competitors are activated by words starting with voiced plosives without prevoicing. Subphonemic variation appears to influence the degree of lexical activation, but this effect depends on the lexical competitor environment.