Open AccessConstructing initial phonology in M andarin C hinese: Syllabic or subsyllabic? A masked priming investigation
Author(s) -
Verdonschot Rinus G.,
Lai Jun,
Chen Feng,
Tamaoka Katsuo,
Schiller Niels O.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
japanese psychological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.392
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5884
pISSN - 0021-5368
DOI - 10.1111/jpr.12064
Subject(s) - syllabic verse , priming (agriculture) , syllable , phonology , vowel , prime (order theory) , linguistics , psychology , mathematics , combinatorics , biology , philosophy , botany , germination
Recent research has put forward the idea that C hinese speech production is governed by the syllable as the fundamental phonological unit. However, it may be that onset priming might be more difficult to obtain in M andarin C hinese. Therefore, in this study, the degree of overlap between prime and target was increased from C to CV (i.e., extending beyond the phoneme) as well as whether primes and targets had an overlapping structure ( CV vs. CVN ). Subsyllabic priming effects were found (i.e., onset + vowel overlap but not purely onset overlap), contrasting with the claim that the syllable is the compulsory building block in the initial construction of M andarin C hinese phonology.