Abstract:
It is generally expected that speakers of American English neutralize the /t/-/d/ voice contrast in words like ``writer'' and ``rider'' and instead produce them as homonyms. However, it has been demonstrated that young adults adjust their articulation depending on context and do not always neutralize this contrast. In particular, young adults preserve the voice contrast in semantically biasing contexts and when speaking for a listener. In the present investigation, the interest was in determining when young children became sensitive to semantic and pragmatic context and, consequently, when they adjusted their articulation in ways similar to young adults. Moreover, there was interest in older adults' sensitivity to context. Young children (ages 7--12), young adults (college age), and older adults (ages 60--80) produced minimal pairs containing voiced and voiceless intervocalic alveolar stops in two semantic contexts (biasing and neutral) and in two pragmatic contexts (listener-present and -absent). The results showed developmental changes in speakers' sensitivity to semantic and pragmatic contexts. These results will be discussed in terms of interactive activation, involving the structure and organization of a speaker's linguistic system, and pragmatic compensation, involving a speaker's cognitive decision processes to adjust articulation for the listener's benefit. [Work supported by NIH.]