Table_1_Asymmetric Influence of Vocalic Context on Mandarin Sibilants: Evidence From ERP Studies.DOCX

In the present study, we examine the interactive effect of vowels on Mandarin fricative sibilants using a passive oddball paradigm to determine whether the HEIGHT features of vowels can spread on the surface and influence preceding consonants with unspecified features. The stimuli are two pairs of Mandarin words ([sa] ∼ [ʂa] and [su] ∼ [ʂu]) contrasting in vowel HEIGHT ([LOW] vs. [HIGH]). Each word in the same pair was presented both as standard and deviant, resulting in four conditions (/standard/[deviant]: /sa/[ʂa] ∼ /ʂa/[sa] and /su/[ʂu] ∼ /ʂu/[su]). In line with the Featurally Underspecified Lexicon (FUL) model, asymmetric patterns of processing were found in the [su] ∼ [ʂu] word pair where both the MMN (mismatch negativity) and LDN (late discriminative negativity) components were more negative in /su/[ʂu] (mismatch) than in /ʂu/[su] (no mismatch), suggesting the spreading of the feature [HIGH] from the vowel [u] to [ʂ] on the surface. In the [sa] ∼ [ʂa] pair, however, symmetric negativities (for both MMN and LDN) were observed as there is no conflict between the surface feature [LOW] from [a] to [ʂ] and the underlying specified feature [LOW] of [s]. These results confirm that not all features are fully specified in the mental lexicon: features of vowels can spread on the surface and influence surrounding unspecified segments.

本研究采用被动Oddball（passive oddball）范式，考察元音对汉语咝音擦音的交互影响，旨在探明元音的舌位高度（HEIGHT）特征是否可在表层传播，并对具有未规约特征的前置辅音产生作用。实验刺激包含两对汉语词汇（[sa] ∼ [ʂa] 与 [su] ∼ [ʂu]），二者在元音舌位高度（[LOW] 与 [HIGH]）维度上形成对立。同一对词汇中的每个词均分别作为标准刺激与偏差刺激呈现，由此形成四种实验条件：/标准/[偏差]：/sa/[ʂa]、/ʂa/[sa] 以及 /su/[ʂu]、/ʂu/[su]。依据特征未规约心理词典（Featurally Underspecified Lexicon, FUL）模型的理论框架，在[su] ∼ [ʂu]词汇对中观察到不对称的加工模式：相较于/ʂu/[su]（无失配条件），/su/[ʂu]（失配条件）下的失配负波（mismatch negativity, MMN）与晚期辨别负波（late discriminative negativity, LDN）均呈现更强的负向偏转，这表明特征[HIGH]可从元音[u]表层传播至前置辅音[ʂ]。然而在[sa] ∼ [ʂa]词汇对中则观察到对称的负波效应（MMN与LDN均如此），这是由于从元音[a]到前置辅音[ʂ]的表层特征[LOW]，与辅音[s]固有的规约特征[LOW]之间不存在冲突。上述结果证实，并非所有特征在心理词典中均被完全规约：元音特征可在表层传播并对周边未规约的语音段产生影响。