Lexically conditioned phonetic variation: an experimental test with the singleton-geminate contrast in Japanese

The present study investigated the extent to which lexical factors, e.g. lexical status and competition, affect phonetic realization of phonological structure, by examining the singleton-geminate contrast in Japanese.  Stimuli were two- and three-mora minimal pairs contrasting in singleton vs. geminate stops, half of which were real words, e.g. /kako/, while the other half were similar-sounding nonwords, e.g. */nako/. Furthermore, half of the items had a lexical competitor contrasting in quantity, e.g. /kako/-/kakko/, while the other half did not, e.g. /tako/-*/takko/.  Thirty-two native Japanese speakers read the target items interspersed with filler items.  Results revealed that the vowel preceding the singleton or geminate stop was shorter for real words than for nonwords.  However, no significant effect of lexical competition was found.  These results suggest that phonetic realization of words is affected by some lexical factors even in a non-stress-accent language such as Japanese.

Co-authored with Keiichi Tajima and Kiyoko Yoneyama, presented at International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Melbourne, Australia, Aug. 5-9, 2019, supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 16K02646, 18K00549, and 18K00662.