SYLLABICATION OF BISYLLABIC NONWORDS - EVIDENCE FROM SHORT-TERM-MEMORY ERRORS

Do errors in short-term memory for spoken stimuli sometimes combine on e syllable from one to-be-remembered item with one syllable from anoth er to-be-remembered item? If so, can the errors shed light on how the stimuli are syllabified? We report three experiments in which college students tried to recall five-item lists containing two CVCVC (consona nt-vowel-consonant-vowel-consonant) nonwords and three filler digits. When the second vowel of the nonword was stressed, recombination error s tended to blend the initial CV of one nonword with the final CVC of another, especially if the middle consonant was an obstruent. When the first vowel was stressed, the error pattern depended on the type of v owel. CV/CVC recombinations were more common for tense vowels than for lax vowels. In general, CV/CVC recombinations tended to be more frequ ent relative to CVC/VC recombinations when the middle consonant was an obstruent than when it was a sonorant. The findings are discussed in relation to linguistic theories of syllabification and the results of previous experiments using metalinguistic tasks.