Abstract
Evidence is presented that (a) the open and the closed word classes in English have different phonological characteristics, (b) the phonological dimension on which they differ is one to which listeners are highly sensitive, and (c) spoken open- and closed-class words produce different patterns of results in some auditory recognition tasks. What implications might link these findings? Two recent lines of evidence from disparate paradigms—the learning of an artificial language, and natural and experimentally induced misperception of juncture—are summarized, both of which suggest that listeners are sensitive to the phonological reflections of open- vs. closed-class word status. Although these correlates cannot be strictly necessary for efficient processing, if they are present listeners exploit them in making word class assignments. That such a use of phonological information is of value to listeners could be indirect evidence that open- vs. closed-class words undergo different processing operations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Altmann, G. T. M., & Carter, D. M. (1989). Lexical stress and lexical discriminability: Stressed syllables are more informative, but why?Computer Speech and Language, 3, 265–275.
Bard, E. G., Shillcock, R. C., & Altmann, G. T. M. (1988). The recognition of words after their acoustic offsets in spontaneous speech: Effects of subsequent context.Perception and Psychophysics, 44, 395–408.
Bond, Z. S. (1981). Listening to elliptic speech: pay attention to stressed vowels.Journal of Phonetics, 9, 89–96.
Bond, Z. S., & Small, L. H. (1983). Voicing, vowel and stress mispronunciations in continuous speech.Perception and Psychophysics, 34, 470–474.
Bradley, D. C. (1978).Computational distinctions of vocabulary type. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
Braine, M. D. S., Brody, R. E., Brooks, P. J., Sudhalter, V., Ross, J. A., Catalano, L., & Fisch, S. M. (1990). Exploring language acquisition in children with a miniature artificial language: Effects of item and pattern frequency, arbitrary subclasses, and correction.Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 591–610.
Cassidy, K. W., & Kelly, M. H. (1991). Phonological information for grammatical category assignments.Journal of Memory and Language, 30, 348–369.
Cutler, A. (1986).Forbear is a homophone: lexical prosody does not constrain lexical access.Language and Speech, 29, 201–220.
Cutler, A. & Butterfield, S. (1992). Rhythmic cues to speech segmentation: Evidence from juncture misperception.Journal of Memory and Language, 31 218–236.
Cutler, A., & Carter, D. M. (1987). The predominance of strong initial syllables in the English vocabulary.Computer Speech and Language, 2, 133–142.
Cutler, A., & Clifton, C. E. (1984). The use of prosodic information in word recognition. In H. Bouma & D. G. Bouwhuis (Eds.),Attention and performance X: Control of language processes (pp. 183–196). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Cutler, A., & Fear, B. (1991). Categoricality in acceptability judgments for strong versus weak vowels.Proceedings of the ESCA Workshop on Phonetics and Phonology of Speaking Styles, Barcelona, 18.1–18.5.
Cutler, A., & Foss, D. J. (1977). On the role of sentence stress in sentence processing.Language and Speech, 20, 1–10.
Cutler, A., & Norris, D. G. (1988). The role of strong syllables in segmentation for lexical access.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 14, 113–121.
Cutler, A., & Swinney, D. A. (1987). Prosody and the development of comprehension.Journal of Child Language, 14, 145–167.
Friederici, A. D. (1985). Levels of processing and vocabulary types: Evidence from online comprehension in normals and agrammatics.Cognition, 19, 133–166.
Garrett, M. F. (1978). Word and sentence perception. In R. Held, H. J. Leibowitz, & H. L. Teuber (Eds.),Handbook of sensory physiology, Volume VIII: Perception (pp. 611–625). Berlin: Springer.
Green, T. R. G. (1979). The necessity of syntax markers: Two experiments with artificial languages.Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18, 481–496.
Grosjean, F. (1985). The recognition of words after their acoustic offset: Evidence and implications.Perception and Psychophysics, 38, 299–310.
Grosjean, F., & Gee, J. (1987). Prosodic structure and spoken word recognition.Cognition, 25, 135–155.
Kean, M.-L. (1978). The linguistic interpretation of aphasic syndromes: Agrammatism in Broca's aphasia, an example.Cognition, 5, 9–46.
Kelly, M. H. (1988). Phonological biases in grammatical category shifts.Journal of Memory and Language, 27, 343–358.
Kelly, M. H. (1992). Using sound to solve syntactic problems: The role of phonology in grammatical category assignments.Psychological Review, 99, 349–364.
Kelly, M. H., & Bock, J. K. (1988). Stress in time.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 14, 389–403.
Kelly, M. H., & Martin, S. (1993). Domain general abilities applied to domain specific tasks: Sensitivity to probabilities in perception, cognition and language.Lingua (in press).
Lucas, M. M. (1987). Frequency effects on the processing of ambiguous words in sentence contexts.Language and Speech, 30, 25–46.
Marslen-Wilson, W. D., & Welsh, A. (1978). Processing interactions and lexical access during word recognition in continuous speech.Cognitive Psychology, 10, 29–63.
Matthei, E. H., & Kean, M.-L. (1989). Postaccess processes in the open vs. closed class distinction.Brain and Language, 36, 163–180.
Morgan, J. L., Meier, R. P., & Newport, E. L. (1987). Structural packaging in the input to language learning: Contributions of prosodic and morphological marking of phrases to the acquisition of language.Cognitive Psychology, 19, 489–550.
Morgan, J. L., & Newport, E. L. (1981). The role of constituent structure in the induction of an artificial language.Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 20, 67–85.
Onifer, W., & Swinney, D. A. (1981). Accessing lexical ambiguities during sentence comprehension: Effects of frequency-of-meaning and contextual bias.Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 17, 225–236.
Salasoo, A., & Pisoni, D. B. (1981).Perception of open and closed class words in fluent speech (Research on Speech Perception, Progress Report 7, pp. 187–195). Bloomington: Speech Research Laboratory, University of Indiana.
Sereno, J. & Jongman, A. (1990). Phonological and form class relations in the lexicon.Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 19, 387–404.
Stankler, J. (1991).Phonological distinctions as morphological signals. Unpublished master of philosophy thesis, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England.
Svartvik, J., & Quirk, R. (1980).A Corpus of English Conversation, Lund: Gleerup.
Swinney, D. A. (1979). Lexical access during sentence comprehension: (Re)consideration of context effects.Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18, 645–659.
Swinney, D. A., Zurif, E. B., & Cutler, A. (1980). Effects of sentential stress and word class upon comprehension in Broca's aphasics.Brain and Language, 10, 132–144.
Tanenhaus, M. K., Leiman, J. M., & Seidenberg, M. S. (1979). Evidence for multiple stages in the processing of ambiguous words in syntactic contexts.Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18, 427–440.
Valian, V. V., & Coulson, S. (1988). Anchor points in language learning: The role of marker frequency.Journal of Memory and Language, 27, 71–86.
Waibel, A. (1988).Prosody and speech recognition. London: Pitman.
Zurif, E. B., & Blumstein, S. (1978). Language and the brain. In M. Halle, J. Bresnan, & G. A. Miller, (Eds.),Linguistic theory and psychological reality (pp. 229–245). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Parts of the research reported in this paper were carried out in collaboration with Sally Butterfield and David Carter, and supported by the Alvey Directorate (United Kingdom). Jonathan Stankler's master's research was supported by the Science and Engineering Research Council (United Kingdom). Thanks to all of the above, and to Merrill Garrett, Mike Kelly, James McQueen, and Dennis Norris for further assistance.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cutler, A. Phonological cues to open- and closed-class words in the processing of spoken sentences. J Psycholinguist Res 22, 109–131 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01067827
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01067827