11 May 2004

Shu-chen Ou and Mits Ota

Much research on the acquisition of second language (L2) stress by speakers of another stress system indicates that the development is constrained by principles of metrical phonology (e.g. Archibald 1993, 1995; Pater 2000). However, it remains to be seen whether this generalization is extendable to the acquisition of L2 stress by learners whose native language does not exhibit dynamic stress. The current study addresses this issue by examining Chinese learners' sensitivity to weight-stress mapping in L2 English. The main experiment was designed to test whether Chinese learners know that English stress shifts from the antepenultimate to penultimate syllable when the penult is heavy (i.e., (C)VV or (C)VC). Twenty Mandarin/Taiwanese speakers who passed a screening test on identification of V-VV in monosyllabic words (e.g., BIT vs. BEAT), performed a preference task. The experimental items were trisyllabic nonwords with antepenultimate or penultimate stress. The penultimate syllable was either (i) open with a short nucleus (CV), (ii) open with a long nucleus (CVV), (iii) closed with a short nucleus (CVC) or (iv) closed with a long nucleus (CVVC). In support of our prediction, the Chinese learners showed preference for penultimate stress when the syllable was CVV, CVC or CVVC. However, unlike the English control subjects, the Chinese subjects also favored CVC and CVVC over CVV as stressed syllables, indicating that in addition to following a general weight-to-stress principle, they have a tendency to assign stress on a closed syllable. To verify this, we ran another experiment in which the same subjects were asked to perform an identification task with initially-stressed disyllabic words (e.g., BITTER vs. BEATER). We hypothesized that if Chinese learners preferred a stressed syllable to be closed, their perception of these stimuli would be biased toward BITTER-type words (with a closed stressed syllable) as opposed to BEATER-type words (with an open stressed syllable). The results supported this prediction. The subjects committed more identification errors with the disyllabic stimuli than with the monosyllabic stimuli, and more misidentification of BEATER-type words as BITTER-type words than the other way around.

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