A purple giraffe is faster than a purple elephant: inconsistent phonology affects determiner selection in English.
The form of a determiner is dependent on different contextual factors: in some languages grammatical number and grammatical gender determine the choice of a determiner variant. In other languages, the phonological onset of the element immediately following the determiner affects selection, too. Previous work has shown that the activation of opposing determiner forms by a noun's grammatical properties leads to slower naming latencies in a picture naming task, as does the activation of opposing forms by the interaction between a noun's gender and the phonological context. The present paper addresses the question of whether phonological context alone is sufficient to evoke competition between determiner forms. Participants produced English phrases in which a noun phrase's phonology required a determiner that was the same as or differed from the determiner required by the noun itself (e.g., apurple giraffe; an orange giraffe). Naming latencies were slower when the phrase-initial determiner differed from the determiner required by the noun in isolation than when the phrase-initial determiner matched the isolated-noun determiner. This was true both for definite and indefinite determiners. The data show that during the production of a determiner-noun phrase, nouns automatically activate the phonological forms of their determiners, which can compete with the phonological forms that are generated by an assimilation rule.
Spalek
Katharina
K
Department of German Language and Linguistics, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 10099 Berlin, Germany. katharina.spalek@staff.hu-berlin.de
Bock
Kathryn
K
Schriefers
Herbert
H
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003210:Concept Formation / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007807:Language Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*