title: Data from Russian Help to Determine in Which Languages the Possible Word Constraint Applies.
abstract: The Possible Word Constraint, or PWC, is a speech segmentation principle prohibiting to postulate word boundaries if a remaining segment contains only consonants. The PWC was initially formulated for English where all words contain a vowel and claimed to hold universally after being confirmed for various other languages. However, it is crucial to look at languages that allow for words without vowels. Two such languages have been tested: data from Slovak were compatible with the PWC, while data from Tarifiyt Berber did not support it. We hypothesize that the fixed word stress could influence the results in Slovak and report two word-spotting experiments on Russian, which has similar one-consonant words, but flexible word stress. The results contradict the PWC, so we suggest that it does not operate in the languages where words without vowels are possible, while the results from Slovak might be explained by its prosodic properties.
authors.affiliation: Department of Liberal Arts and Sciences, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia.
authors.forename: Svetlana
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8540-6178
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Alexeeva
authors.affiliation: Department of Liberal Arts and Sciences, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia.
authors.forename: Anastasia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Frolova
authors.affiliation: Department of Liberal Arts and Sciences, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia. slioussar@gmail.com.|School of Linguistics, Higher School of Economics, Staraya Basmannaya Street 21/4, Moscow, Russia, 105066. slioussar@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Natalia
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1706-6439
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Slioussar
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012426:Russia; D013060:Speech; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Consonants; Flexible stress; Possible Word Constraint; Russian; Speech segmentation