Contrastive perception of duration and F0 cues for stop categorization

Abstract

This study examined the role of linguistic experience in the contrastive perception of suprasegmental cues for stop categorization. Korean-speaking learners of Mandarin and naive listeners labeled word-medial unaspirated stops (e.g., ma.pa) as either fortis [long closure–high F0] or lenis [short closure–low F0]. The results revealed comparable effects of relative dura- tion for both groups: shorter neighboring vowels elicited more fortis responses, arising from longer perceived stop closure. However, F0 contours were processed contrastively only for the learners: stops were perceived as fortis before vowels with lower offset F0, which may have contributed to a higher perceived onset F0.