Effects of Articulation Difficulty on Mora Detection

—Comparative Study of Adult Speakers Who Stutter and Do Not Stutter Using Kanji Compound Words—

Abstract

The effects of articulation difficulty and familiarity on mora-monitoring for compound Kanji words were analyzed for adult speakers who stutter (AWS) and do not stutter (AWDS). AWS and AWDS both rated as hard to articulate words with low familiarity and words containing homorganic clusters of palatalized syllables with a narrow vowel nucleus. Articulation difficulty for some words with high familiarity was rated significantly harder by AWS than by AWDS. For words rated harder to articulate, the monitoring accuracy was lower and response speed was slower for both speaker groups, particularly for AWS. These findings suggest that for words AWS consider harder to articulate, mora-manipulation becomes slower and less accurate, which may trigger stuttering.