Stress Rules and Performance

Regular stress patterns of English as described by Chomsky and Halle are examined experimentally. Three experiments each on production and recognition are given. Experiments on production used written materials as stimuli. Results indicate that knowledge of the rules did not permit subjects to derive standard productions of words or derived forms of words they had not previously heard or spoken. Production strategies in this case involve a search for a suitable underlying form. Subjects were able to recognize errors of production of familiar as well as unfamiliar words. This ability provides feedback enabling the subject to recognize a standard form as such once he has derived it, but not before. Recognition did not correlate as closely with familiarity as did production, nor did it correlate with ability to produce. Recognition abilities more clearly reflect what one might expect of a performance given the competence of a native speaker.