Linguistic knowledge and language performance in English article variant preference

The knowledge that speakers use in language performance has traditionally been described in terms of abstract rules. However, speaker and listener performance cannot always be captured using a single rule. Alternative models include the interaction of multiple rules, knowledge of association pairs, and generalisation over word similarities. The study tests views of linguistic knowledge against the results of three experiments using English definite and indefinite article variant preference in both a production and a perception task. The results argue against a rule-based model of speaker knowledge or knowledge of article-word combinations, but support the view that performance is based on generalisations sensitive to phonetic, prosodic, and orthographic word features. In addition to initial segment class, definite article variant preference was influenced by a tendency for language users to prefer an alternating rhythm of stressed and unstressed syllables. Effects of sound-letter correspondence were obtained even though participants saw no written materials. The consistency of the effects across modalities argues that the same type of language knowledge underlies both the perception and production of language.