Phonological variation in spoken word recognition: Episodes and abstractions

Phonological variation in spoken words is a ubiquitous aspect of spontaneous speech and presents a challenge for recognition of spoken words. We discuss two classes of models, abstract and episodic, that have been proposed for spoken word recognition. Abstract theories rely on inference processes an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Linguistic review 2006-01, Vol.23 (3), p.235-245
Main Authors: Connine, Cynthia M, Pinnow, Eleni
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Phonological variation in spoken words is a ubiquitous aspect of spontaneous speech and presents a challenge for recognition of spoken words. We discuss two classes of models, abstract and episodic, that have been proposed for spoken word recognition. Abstract theories rely on inference processes and/or underspecified representations to account for spoken word recognition. Episodic theories assume a lexical representation that encodes each spoken word event with exposure frequency linked to strength of a lexical entry. A model is proposed that posits a frequency-driven phonological variant lexical representation. The model assumes that a word may have more than one variant representation and that exposure to phonological variant form influences the strength of a given variant representation. Evidence for the proposed model is reviewed for a number of variants (nasal flaps, schwa deletion and medial flaps).
ISSN:0167-6318
1613-3676
DOI:10.1515/TLR.2006.009