Production of schwa by Japanese speakers of English : a cross-linguistic study of coarticulatory strategies
The rhythm of English is characterized by the alternation of full and reduced vowels. Current studies on the reduced vowel seem to suggest that schwa may be targetless in F<SUB>2</SUB> (Browman & Goldstein 1992; Recasens 1986; Bergem 1993; Bergem 1994). This implies that there may be a contrast of targeted and targetless vowels in languages like English. In other words while the full stressed vowels of English are targeted and resistant to contextual effects (Fowler 1981; Magen 1984), the reduced vowels of English may be targetless and extremely variable as a function of contexts. This pattern of coarticulation seems to be determined at the higher level of the linguistic representation and surfaces as phonetic underspecification of schwa. On the other hand, there is no phonological vowel reduction in Japanese. Accent in Japanese shows little correlation with vowel quality. Presumably, all its vowels are targeted though large extent of V-to-V effects have been reported by a number of studies (Keating & Huffman 1984; Magen 1984). In other words, different accent types, stress accent and non-stress accent (Beckman 1986) observed in English and Japanese seem to constrain the coarticulatory patterns of the two
Kondo, Yuko
Production of schwa by Japanese speakers of English : a cross-linguistic study of coarticulatory strategies. The rhythm of English is characterized by the alternation of full and reduced vowels. Current studies on the reduced vowel seem to suggest that schwa may be targetless in F<SUB>2</SUB> (Browman & Goldstein 1992; Recasens 1986; Bergem 1993; Bergem 1994). This implies that there may be a contrast of targeted and targetless vowels in languages like English. In other words while the full stressed vowels of English are targeted and resistant to contextual effects (Fowler 1981; Magen 1984), the reduced vowels of English may be targetless and extremely variable as a function of contexts. This pattern of coarticulation seems to be determined at the higher level of the linguistic representation and surfaces as phonetic underspecification of schwa. On the other hand, there is no phonological vowel reduction in Japanese. Accent in Japanese shows little correlation with vowel quality. Presumably, all its vowels are targeted though large extent of V-to-V effects have been reported by a number of studies (Keating & Huffman 1984; Magen 1984). In other words, different accent types, stress accent and non-stress accent (Beckman 1986) observed in English and Japanese seem to constrain the coarticulatory patterns of the two
production japanese speaker_english cross_linguistic study strategy rhythm english characterize alternation full reduce vowel current_study reduce vowel seem suggest may and implies may contrast vowel languages like english word full stress vowel english target resistant contextual effect reduce vowel english may extremely variable function context pattern seem determined high_level linguistic representation surface phonetic underspecification hand phonological vowel reduction japanese accent japanese show little correlation vowel quality presumably vowel target though large_extent effect report number study and word different accent_type stress accent non stress accent observe english_japanese seem constrain pattern