Native-language phonetic and phonological influences on perception of American English approximants by Danish and German listeners

Perception of non-native consonant contrasts may be influenced by phonetic, as well as phonological, properties of the listenerââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s native language. The impact of both factors on perception of American English /r l w j/ was investigated with native speakers of Danish and German, which have /r l j/ but lack /w/, thus employing /r/-/l/ but lacking /w/-/j/ and /w/-/r/ as phonological contrasts. However, while the three languages realize /j/ identically, Danish/German ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“lightââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ alveolar [l] differs modestly from English ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“darkââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ [ Ã"¦Ã¢â‚¬Å¡] (velarized), Danish pharyngeal and labiodental approximant realizations of/r, v/ are more similar to English /r, w/than are German uvular and labiodentals fricative realizations, and Danish is richer in approximants than English or German. Phonetic similarities perceptually outweighed phonological correspondences: Danish listenersââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ performance on /w/-/r/ and /r//l/ approached that of English speakers, and discrimination of /w/-/j/ was remarkably higher than English speakersââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢, all largely irrespective of spoken English experience. German listenersââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ identification of all contrasts was highly categorical, but discrimination was poorer than English and Danish listenersââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ for /w/-/r/ and /r/-/l/ and fell in between those two groups for /w/-/j/. Thus, cross-language phonetic relationships among corresponding (or neighboring) phonemes strongly influence perception. Together with systemic consideration of English, Danish, and German vowel and approximant subsystems, our results indicate that non-native speech perception is affected not only by the phonological contrastiveness and phonetic realizations of the target phonemes in the listenersââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ language, but also by broader systemic factors such as phonological subclasses.