Neutralisation and the perception of close-mid and open-mid vowels: The gradient between phonological categories.
Im, M., J. Veloso, M. Costa, and L. Jesus (2023).
In Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS 2023), Prague, Czech Republic, pp. 82-86.
A prototype theoretical framework was the basis of a study on the impact of neutralisation on the
perception of Portuguese close-mid and open-mid vowels and the gradient between phonological
categories. Fifteen Portuguese listeners from Lisbon participated in identification and goodness rating
tasks of 20 random repetitions of 31 stimuli from a /i/-/e/-/ɛ/-/a/ continuum. Boundaries between
categories were explored using logistic regression curves and analysis of variance.
Results from the identification task revealed four vowel categories marked by three statistically distinct
boundaries. The prototype of a category, i.e., the stimulus with the highest goodness rating score, was
approximately in the centroid and the goodness score decreased as the stimulus moved away from this
centroid. The boundary between /e/ and /ɛ/, the underlying opposition that neutralises at surface level,
was less steep than between /ɛ/ and /a/, the opposition that never neutralises, a possible influence of the
phonological system on speech perception.
Jesus, L., M. Im, J. Veloso, and M. Costa (2024). Influence of the European Portuguese phonological system on the perception of close-mid and open-mid vowels. Glossa 9(1). doi:
10.16995/glossa.10607
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Last updated 14/2/2024
lmtj@ua.pt
Luís Miguel Teixeira de Jesus
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