Contextual factors in lexical processing: the case of French Liaison

Lower-level and higher-level processes during lexical recognition were investigated using ambiguous pseudo-noun cases related to liaisons in French. In phrases such as un onche and un nonche, the misalignment in the former liaison case produces an identical surface form as in the latter consonant-initial case, both [œ̃.nɔ̃ʃ], and two possible interpretations (onche, nonche) enter into competition. Quebec-French-speaking adults performed an implicit segmentation task testing the use of different factors. Results showed a dominant effect of syntactic category, with a general bias for vowel-initial interpretation when targets followed a determiner. The use of specific liaison acoustic cues for disambiguation was found for /z/ and /n/ only in adjective context. Liaison frequency and onset probability had no clear influence. Thus, the contextual knowledge of liaison-causing words is crucial for lexical recognition. These findings are consistent with the predictions of the hierarchy proposed by Mattys, White, and Melhorn (2005).