ENGLISH CLUSTER PERCEPTION BY TAIWANESE MANDARIN SPEAKERS

Yueh-chin Chang1, Jiaqing Hong1 & Pierre André Hallé2
1National Tsing Hua University, Institute of Linguisitcs, Hsinchu, Taiwan; 2Laboratoire de Psychologie Expérimentale, CNRS-Paris V

ID 1459
[full paper]

Mandarin syllable structure does not allow consonant clusters. In this study, we investigated the perception of English initial consonant clusters by native speakers of Taiwanese Mandarin (TM). The results show that the factors which affect the perception of non-native clusters are the phonemic inventory of the native language, coarticulation within the cluster, articulatory command in producing consonant clusters, and native-language phonotactic constraints. However, these constraints are not an important factor in the perception of non-native clusters by TM speakers.