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The present study investigated the role of spelling in phonological variant processing. Participants learned the auditory forms of potential reduced variants of novel French words (e.g., /plur/) and their associations with pictures of novel objects over 4 days. After the fourth day of training, the spelling of each novel word was presented once. Half the words were spelled with an orthographic representation of the schwa (i.e., "e"), half were not. In the subsequent naming tasks, participants produced more schwa variants for novel words whose spelling contained an "e". In addition, reduced variants with an "e" in spelling and an onset cluster attested word-internally in non-schwa words were produced with longer latencies than the same items whose spelling did not contain an "e". Finally, in a recognition task where participants had to decide whether a given spoken item was part of the experimental stimuli trained the previous days, participants were more likely to say yes to a schwa variant when the spelling for the given word corresponded to this variant. These results show that a single exposure to spelling following extensive phonological learning can change the way speakers and listeners store and process words with phonological variants both in production and recognition tasks. (Contains 2 tables and 5 figures.)

In a crossmodal priming experiment, visual targets (e.g. "RENARD," "fox") were auditorily primed by either an intact [l[schwa][R][schwa]na[R]] "the fox" or reduced form [l[schwa][R]na[R]] "the fox" of the word. When schwa deletion gave rise to an initial cluster that respected the phonotactic constraints of French (e.g. [lapluz] "the lawn" in which /pl/ is a legal word beginning in French), there was a processing cost for the targets primed by the reduced form of the word compared to intact primes (e.g. [lap[schwa]luz] "the lawn"). However, when schwa deletion produced an initial cluster that violated the phonotactic constraints of French (e.g. [l[schwa][R]na[R]], where /Rn/ is not allowed as a word beginning), there was no penalty for targets primed by reduced compared to intact forms of the word. Assuming that listeners change their phonemic percept when confronted with phonotactically illegal sequences (Segui, Frauenfelder, & Halle, 2001), phonotactic constraints may help to restore the deleted schwa in sequences like "le renard" [l[schwa][R]na[R]] in French.

Four experiments were carried out to examine phonological priming effects on bisyllabic target words. In the first two, monosyllabic word and pseudoword primes facilitated lexical decisions to auditorily presented bisyllabic words. The second replicated the initial-overlap effect for monosyllabic word primes using a crossmodal method. In the third, the initial overlap facilitation effect was replicated in a naming task. (Author/VWL)

We examined acoustic differences between phonemically identical sequences arising from French elision (l'affiche 'the poster', la fiche 'the sheet', both [[image omitted]]) and listeners' discrimination and identification of these sequences. Experiments 1 (ABX paradigm) and 2 (forced choice task) demonstrate that listeners discriminate between and identify such utterances. Experiments 3 and 4 used a cross-modal identity paradigm. Although targets (fiche, affiche) were activated regardless of the intended segmentation in the prime ([[image omitted]], [[image omitted]]), priming was greater in the intended segmentation, suggesting that listeners retrieve the correct segmentation and modulate activation in favour of the correct candidate, without ruling out alternative interpretations. Experiments 5 and 6 used fragment priming to evaluate the time course of the use of acoustic cues. Consonant-initial targets (fiche) were activated regardless of intended segmentation ([[image omitted]], [[image omitted]]) whereas vowel-initial targets (affiche) were only activated in their intended segmentation ([[image omitted]]). These results provide further evidence for fine-grained lexical access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a cross-modal (auditory-visual) fragment priming study in French, we tested the hypothesis that gender information given by a gender-marked article (e.g. unmasculine or unefeminine) is used early in the recognition of the following word to discard gender-incongruent competitors. In four experiments, we compared lexical decision performances on targets primed by phonological information only (e.g. /kRa/-CRAPAUD /kRapo/; /to/-TOAD) or by phonological plus gender information given by a gender-marked article (e.g. unmasculine /kra/-CRAPAUD; a /to/-TOAD). In all experiments, we found a phonological priming effect that was not modulated by the presence of gender context, whether gender-marked articles were congruent (Experiments 1, 2, and 3) or incongruent (Experiment 4) with the target gender. Moreover, phonological facilitation was not modulated by the presence of gender context, whether gender-marked articles allowed exclusion of less frequent competitors (Experiment 1) or more frequent ones (Experiments 2 and 3). We concluded that gender information extracted from a preceding gender-marked determiner is not used early in the process of spoken word recognition and that it may be used in a later selection process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the effects of phonological resyllabification processes on the perception of French speech. Resyllabification of a word-final consonant across a syllable boundary; Cross-modal priming experiment showing no cost attached to either type of resyllabification in terms of reduced activation of the following word.

Abstract: Liaison is a sandhi phenomenon in French. Over the last four decades, it has given rise to many different models illustrating the whole range of phonological theories. More recently, new studies have documented its acquisition in French-speaking children as well as adult learners of French as a second language. These studies have resulted in the elaboration of two models of the acquisition process: (1) the constructionist model (Chevrot et al., 2009; Nicoladis and Paradis, 2011) developed within the framework of the usage-based theories; (2) the phonological model (Wauquier, 2009) which represents the framework of nonlinear phonology. Our aim is to re-examine the usage-based model in the light of the criticisms and suggestions made by Wauquier (2009). We shall first present the two models and then examine the issues under discussion. After that, we shall present longitudinal data testing a prediction made by the phonological model with regard to the generalization process in L1 and L2 acquisition. To conclude, we shall identify the points that remain to be clarified for each of the models and the directions which future research should take. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]