Treiman, Rebecca & Brett Kessler. 2005, November. Long-distance anticipatory effects in spelling-to-sound translation. Paper presented at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Toronto, Canada.
Phonological decoding of written words is often viewed as a serial process. To test this view, we examined whether college students’ productions reflect sensitivity to English spelling patterns that require long-distance nonserial processing. Word-initial g is usually velar (hard), but before e, i, or y, it is coronal (soft) if the root word is Classical or Romance (e.g., giant, vs. Germanic give). Students were more likely to use the coronal pronunciation for nonwords with Classical or Romance spelling patterns (e.g., gepous, gileph) than for those with native Germanic patterns (e.g., gepness, gileff). This tendency was found also for rare words, and to some extent for initial c. Students who had studied a Romance language produced more coronal pronunciations of initial g and c than those who had not. Thus, when decoding word-initial letters, readers consider complicated and largely untaught patterns that extend to the ends of words.
Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2005, November). Long-distance anticipatory effects in spelling-to-sound translation. Paper presented at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Toronto, Canada.
Last change 2009-08-07T11:09:46-0500