MisMatch Negativity-study showing pre-lexical sensitivity to both primary Final Accent and secondary Initial Accent in French

Abstract

In French, accentuation is not lexically distinctive and tightly intertwined with intonation. This has led to the language being described of as a language without accent and to French listeners being alleged deaf to stress. However, if one considers Di Cristos model in which the metrical structure of speech plays a central role, it becomes possible to envision stress templates underlying the cognitive representation of words. This event-related potential (O_SCPLOWERPC_SCPLOW) study examined whether French listeners are sensitive to the French primary final accent (O_SCPLOWFAC_SCPLOW) and secondary initial accent (O_SCPLOWIAC_SCPLOW), and whether the accents are part of the French phonologically expected stress pattern. Two oddball studies were carried out. In the first study, in one condition, deviants were presented without (-O_SCPLOWFAC_SCPLOW) and standards with final accent (+O_SCPLOWFAC_SCPLOW), while in another condition, these positions were switched. We obtained asymmetric O_SCPLOWMMNC_SCPLOW waveforms, such that deviants -O_SCPLOWFAC_SCPLOW elicited a larger O_SCPLOWMMNC_SCPLOW than deviants +O_SCPLOWFAC_SCPLOW (which did not elicit an O_SCPLOWMMNC_SCPLOW), pointing toward a preference for stress patterns with O_SCPLOWFAC_SCPLOW. Additionally, the difference waveforms between identical stimuli in different positions within the oddball paradigms indicated -O_SCPLOWFAC_SCPLOW stimuli to be disfavored whether they were the deviants or the standards. In the second study, standards were always presented with both the initial and final accent, while deviants were presented either without final accent (-O_SCPLOWFAC_SCPLOW) or without initial accent (-O_SCPLOWIAC_SCPLOW). Here, we obtained O_SCPLOWMMNC_SCPLOWs both to deviants -O_SCPLOWFAC_SCPLOW and to deviants -O_SCPLOWIAC_SCPLOW, although -O_SCPLOWFAC_SCPLOW deviants elicited a more ample O_SCPLOWMMNC_SCPLOW. Nevertheless, the results show that French listeners are not deaf to the initial and final accents, pointing instead to an abstract phonological representation for both accents. In sum, the results argue against the notion of stress deafness for French and instead suggest accentuation to play a more important role in French speech comprehension than is currently acknowledged.