The Role of Phonological Units in Perception and Their Effects on the Control of Speech Rhythm

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This study investigated to what extent the timing organisation of a first language influences the production of a second language, in particular the timing compensation phenomenon as a tool for analysis of rhythmic organisation. The study mainly examined the relationship between moraic parsing of French sound sequences by Japanese speakers and their speech timing control at different levels of prosodic units. Previous phonetic studies show that the mora is the basic unit of speech timing in Japanese, whereas in French the duration of a phrase is dependent on the number of syllables. Durational data from sets of French phrases consisting of the same number of syllables spoken by Japanese and French speakers were examined.The results found that Japanese speakers clearly showed mora-based timing control in syllables ; phonologically bimoraic French syllables, as perceived by Japanese listeners, were significantly longer than mono-moraic syllables. The results indicated that : 1) Japanese speakers parse foreign sound sequences into a Japanese speech unit, i.e. the mora ; and 2) in production they use the mora rather than the syllable for durational control of French when they speak French. However, the effect of the mora on phrase level timing control was less clear, although there was a tendency in Japanese speakers' French utterances for phrase durations to be proportional to their mora count. The results suggest that timing control in larger prosodic units, such as at the phrase level, is easier to control for Japanese speakers even after they have acquired mora-based timing control. The timing compensation effects probably appear on different levels in different language groups, especially a first and second languages.