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Journal Article

Finding words in a language that allows words without vowels

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/persons/resource/persons122

McQueen,  James M.
Language Comprehension Department, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society;
Radboud University Nijmegen;
Mechanisms and Representations in Comprehending Speech, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society;
Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands;
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, External Organizations;

/persons/resource/persons30

Cutler,  Anne
Language Comprehension Department, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society;
Radboud University Nijmegen;
Mechanisms and Representations in Comprehending Speech, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society;
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, External Organizations;
MARCS Institute, University of Western Sydney, NSW, Australia;

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1-s2.0-S001002771200056X-main.pdf
(Publisher version), 247KB

Supplementary Material (public)

mmc1.pdf
(Supplementary material), 121KB

Citation

El Aissati, A., McQueen, J. M., & Cutler, A. (2012). Finding words in a language that allows words without vowels. Cognition, 124, 79-84. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2012.03.006.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0011-F48D-E
Abstract
Across many languages from unrelated families, spoken-word recognition is subject to a constraint whereby potential word candidates must contain a vowel. This constraint minimizes competition from embedded words (e.g., in English, disfavoring win in twin because t cannot be a word). However, the constraint would be counter-productive in certain languages that allow stand-alone vowelless open-class words. One such language is Berber (where t is indeed a word). Berber listeners here detected words affixed to nonsense contexts with or without vowels. Length effects seen in other languages replicated in Berber, but in contrast to prior findings, word detection was not hindered by vowelless contexts. When words can be vowelless, otherwise universal constraints disfavoring vowelless words do not feature in spoken-word recognition.