The influence of sonority on the production of words ending in -ed by Brazilian EFL learners

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of sonority on the production of vowel epenthesis in verbs ending in -ed by Brazilian learners of English. Participants were twenty-six upper-intermediate Brazilian EFL learners who read and audio-recorded ten paragraphs containing 91 verbs ending in ed. The results demonstrated that sonority influenced mispronunciations since the least sonorous obstruents preceding -ed induced more vowel epenthesis than the more sonorous sonorants, which in turn induced more epenthesis than vowels in the same position. The results also demonstrated that within the class of obstruents, affricates preceding -ed induced more epenthesis than stops, which induced more epenthesis than fricatives, and that, within the class of sonorants, nasals induced more epenthesis than liquids. These results suggest that markedness in terms of sonority affects the production of vowel epenthesis in words ending in -ed.

Keywords

• verbs ending in-ed
• markedness
• sonority