The perception of coronal stops in Wubuy

Abstract

Research has indicated that native speech perception may be more difficult than is often assumed. Coronal stop contrastseries might fall in this category as they have been reported to be very difficult to distinguish even by native listeners, though this has not previously been systematically examined. It has been claimed that listeners rely on information in preceding vowels in order to correctly perceive these stops, making perception particularly difficult, if not impossible, when the stops are not preceded by a vowel. This paper presents two studies of the discrimination of multiple coronal stops by native speakers of Wubuy and provides strong evidence that native listeners are able to discriminate these consonants, even when they are not preceded by a vowel.