PROSODIC CONDITIONING OF PORTUGUESE SUBJECTS’ PERCEPTION OF VOWEL NASALITY

John Hajek1 & Ian Watson2
1School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne; 2Phonetics Laboratory and Christ Church, University of Oxford, Great Britain

ID 1238
[full paper]

We examine the sensitivity of Portuguese subjects to a series of prosodic parameters previously shown to condition perception of vowel nasality, hypothesizing that the presence in Portuguese of long, strongly nasal vowels would (i) provoke lower nasality ratings than observed in English and French subjects and (ii) make these insensitive to prosodic parameters under investigation. The results confirm (i) but not (ii). Although there was some language-specificity in their responses, the subjects were sensitive to all the parameters in question, confirming their robustness.