Vowel undershoot in the production of nonwords by English and Mandarin speakers

Abstract

In a previous study (Yang, 2011), it was found that both Mandarin and English speakers showed vowel undershoot (characterized by decreased vowel duration and lowered first formant) in the production of English vowels while reading a list of real words, but Mandarin speakers could not make a clear tense-lax distinction. The current study aims at examining the degree of undershoot and tense-lax distinction when speakers had to reproduce what they heard without any visual input. In a nonword repetition task, Mandarin and English speakers were auditorily presented with a list, consisting of 8 English nonword triplets with the target vowels /i, ɪ, eɪ, ɛ/ embedded: monosyllables, disyllables and trisyllables. Each trial began with a short training session where participants listened to the nonwords in each triplet as many times as they wanted. After training, each nonword were played three times and participants repeated after each token. Our preliminary data showed that English speakers, while maintaining the tense-lax distinction, showed undershoot when producing nonwords across the three syllabic conditions. On the contrary, Mandarin speakers showed very limited undershoot and unclear tense-lax distinction across the three syllabic conditions, especially between /eɪ/ and /ɛ/. [Yu-Jung Lin and Kuan-Yi Chao contributed equally to this project.]