Variation and assimilation in German: Consequences for lexical access and representation

Coenen, E., Zwitserlood, P., & Bölte, J.

Abstract

The consequences of surface variation in speech on lexical access have recently received considerable attention. The lexical system is intolerant to mismatch between input and lexical representation, but an exception is phonologically regular variation. One example is assimilation of consonants that adopt the place of articulation of adjacent consonants in fast speech. Data are presented from crossmodal form priming experiments in German on regressive and progressive assimilation at word boundaries. The results show that some, but not all forms of lawful variation are tolerated by the lexical system. The consequences of these findings for psycholinguistic and linguistic models, some of which incorporate explanations for regular variation, are discussed.