華語子音語誤之區辨特徵

Consonant Features in Mandarin Speech Errors

本研究主要是透過台灣華語自然語誤語料庫來測試子音中的區辨特徵，是否在不同特徵群組中的階級組織具備心理學驗證。子音的區別特徵區分為5大類別，分別是[Place]，[VOT]，[Continuancy]，[Frication]，[Nasality]。結果發現，主要的語誤在子音代換中只呈現一個區辨特徵的不同，隨著區辨特徵差別越多，子音語誤代換的情形隨之遞減。此點顯示出越是相近似的子音越容易出現在子音語誤的代換錯誤，而子音之間[Place]是最容易被違反的，最不容易被違反的是[Nasality]。這樣的論點與其他語言語誤相關研究吻合，也稍微能從優選理論得到解釋。

This paper examines the psychological validity of hierarchies in consonantal features based on analyses of naturally occurring speech errors in Mandarin spoken in Taiwan. Differences in consonant pairs that interacted in speech errors involve five features: place, voice onset time, continuancy, frication, and nasality in different proportions. Most errors involve consonant pairs differing in only one feature, and there is a monotonic decrease as the number of feature differences increases. This suggests that consonant similarity in terms of shared features affects the frequency with which two segments are mutually involved in speech errors. Place of articulation is the feature most often violated in speech errors whereas nasality is violated the least often. Such a hierarchy of feature distribution may have some cross-linguistic validity and can be partially explained in Optimality Theory in which faithfulness to manner is ranked higher than faithfulness to place predicting more error violations in place features.