Why [spa] not [psa]? On the perceptual salience of initial /s/-stop and stop-/s/ sequences.

Abstract

Initial /s/-stop clusters occur frequently in the world’s languages, but initial stop-/s/ clusters are relatively infrequent. Furthermore, there appear to be no languages that contain initial stop-/s/ clusters, but not /s/-stop clusters, while the reverse is not true [Morelli, (1999) and (2003)]. This study aims at uncovering a perceptual explanation for these patterns by examining the salience of initial /s/-stop and stop-/s/ clusters in Greek, where both sequences are common. Twenty naïve Greek adult listeners identified syllables beginning with /sp/, /st/, /sk/, /ps/, /ts/, or /ks/, in two vowel contexts, /a/ and /i/, in real words spoken by ten Greek adult native speakers. The syllables were mixed with parts of Greek multitalker babble using SNRs of −6, 0, and +6 dB and presented to listeners for identification. Results showed significantly poorer identification for the /ps/ and /ks/ clusters than the /ts/ and /s/-stop clusters, particularly in the −6 and 0 SNRS. There was also a significant interaction with vowel, such that /sk/ and /ts/ were identified more accurately before /a/, whereas /ks/ was identified more accurately before /i/. The implications of these findings for phonological acquisition and speech perception are considered. [Work supported by NIDCD 02932 and NSF Grant 0729140.]