Listeners' sensitivity to consonant variation within words

In a previous study (van de Weijer 2003), it was shown that it is a relatively uncommon pattern to find two IC within the same monomorphemic word. The main purpose of the present study was to establish whether listeners have implicit knowledge of this aspect of phonological word structure. A lexical decision experiment was carried out in which subjects listened to nonsense words and real words in which the presence of IC was systematically varied. The results revealed an asymmetrical pattern for the real words and the nonsense words, as was evidenced by a significant interaction of lexical status and the presence of IC. Real words without IC were recognized faster than real words with IC, whereas nonsense words without IC were rejected more slowly than nonsense words with IC. The pattern was the same for the monosyllabic and the disyllabic items, but the differences were somewhat clearer for the monosyllabic items than for the disyllabic items. (Less)