Abstract
This study examines how several acoustic cues affect Japanese speakers' perception of geminates in three English-like nonwords, /tεk/, /tεkt/, and /tεkin/, produced by two native English speakers. A perception test showed a significant difference among the test words, /tek/ being perceived most often as a geminate, and /tekt/ least often. Of the variables examined-duration of /k/, ratio of /k/ to preceding vowel duration (C/V), ratio of /k/ to word duration (C/W), and word duration, our results correlated most highly with word duration. A second perception test varying word duration also showed a significant effect of word duration in all cases but one, a token of/tek/ which had durational properties (C/V and C/W) similar to the Japanese geminate consonant. We thus conclude that word duration is the strongest cue for the perception of gemination in English-like sound strings by Japanese speakers.
