English past-tense -ed allomorphs and L2 speech intelligibility: a study with Brazilian listeners

Abstract

This study investigated the possible influence of the allomorphs [t, d, ɪd] in the intelligibility of 48 verbs ending in -ed, half in the first and half in the second intelligibility test, which were produced by eight speakers from four different L1 backgrounds (e.g., BP, Spanish, German, English) and orthographically transcribed by 14 Brazilian listeners in two intelligibility tests within a four-month interval. Results of the first intelligibility test indicated that verbs ending in the allomorph [t] were more intelligible than verbs ending in the allomorph [ɪd], which in turn were more intelligible than verbs ending in the allomorph [d]. However, results for the second intelligibility test did not follow the same tendency and indicated that the intelligibility of verbs ending in the allomorphs [t, ɪd] were very similar whereas the results for the intelligibility of verbs with the allomorph [d] increased since it had large room for improvement from the first to the second test. Moreover, results also indicated that there was variation in the intelligibility of verbs ending in the three allomorphs for each learner and among the learners, demonstrating that the language development is a dynamic, varied, and complex system, as the Dynamic System Theory proposes.

Keywords

• Intelligibility
• Verbs ending in -ed
• Brazilian listeners
• Variation
• Dynamic System Theory