Speech errors, phonotactic constraints, and implicit learning: a study of the role of experience in language production

Speech errors follow the phonotactics of the language being spoken. For example, in English, if [n] is mispronounced as [n], the [q] will always appear in a syllable coda. The authors created an analogue to this phenomenon by having participants recite lists of consonant-vowel-consonant syllables in 4 sessions on different days. In the first 2 experiments, some consonants were always onsets, some were always codas, and some could be both. In a third experiment, the set of possible onsets and codas depended on vowel identity. In all 3 studies, the production errors that occurred respected the "phono-tactics " of the experiment The results illustrate the implicit learning of the sequential constraints present in the stimuli and show that the language production system adapts to recent experience. We know that "king " is a word of English and that, as far as we can tell, "hing " is not. However, most people would not be greatly surprised to hear that "hing " is a word that they just do not know. This is because [hlrj] is well formed. Each of its phonemes occur in English, and their ordering is consistent with English phono-tactics, the constraints that define the language's sound sequences. Just as it is apparent that "hing " is a possible word, it is eve