The acquisition of English word-final obstruents by Chinese speakers.

摘要

In this study, I investigate the production of word-final nasals, voiceless obstruents, and voiced obstruents by speakers of two Chinese dialects, Mandarin and Taiwanese. I account for error rates and error types (specifically, the choice of epenthesis, deletion, or change in segment quality) on the basis of four factors: transfer, markedness, a preference for bisyllabic forms, and a preference for penultimate stress.;Epenthesis and deletion were the predominant strategies used by Mandarin speakers to deal with English syllable-final obstruents, while devoicing was most common among Taiwanese speakers. Monosyllabic words were significantly more likely to undergo epenthesis (CVC;A total of 540 English words ending in nasals or stops were elicited from twenty subjects. Subjects made significantly more errors in areas where there was a difference between the coda constraints in the native language and the target language. In coda position, Mandarin allows only two consonants, /n/ and