Vowel epenthesis in non-native consonant clusters by native Japanese speakers was investigated in terms of both production and perception. In a reading experiment (subjects read English words and nonsense words) native Japanese speakers inserted the vowel /o/ after /t/ or /d/ in consonant clusters, and the vowel /u/ after other consonants. In a repetition experiment (subjects repeated utterances of a native English speaker) native Japanese speakers mostly did not insert vowels inside consonant clusters. In cases of vowel epenthesis, the lengths of most epenthetic vowels were shorter than those in the reading experiment. The magnetoencephalographic mismatch responses were elicited by epenthetic vowels, suggesting that the native Japanese speakers detected epenthetic vowels as real segments. From these results we infer that vowel epenthesis by native Japanese speakers does not arise from the perception of "illusory vowels" as Dupoux et al. insisted, but rather from the difficulty of articulating consonant clusters and/or Japanese phonological rules.

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国立情報学研究所で電子化