PRODUCTION AND PERCEPTION OF NOUN-VERB HOMOGRAPHS IN ENGLISH IN INDIA

Richa Sharma

Abstract


English has a series of noun-verb homographs such as record, contrast, overflow, permit etc. that function both as noun and as verb.(19) Differences in stress placement affect the prominence a particular syllable receives in such pairs of words. The nouns receive stress on the first syllable and verbs receive stress on the second syllable.(8,9) The speakers of English rely primarily on the differential stress placements as important prosodic cues to discriminate and label the grammatical category of words in such homographs. How are such noun-verb pairs produced and perceived by speakers of English in India?

By drawing on both production and perception data, from a number of speakers in India, the present study empirically investigates the ability of the speakers in India to discriminate between such noun-verb pairs. Findings suggest that speakers of English in India find prosodic cues alone insufficient to be able to differentiate between nouns and verbs in such pairs when presented in decontextualized manner.


Keywords


Stress assignment, noun-verb homographs, English in India, ENL English, Indian English, Perception of non-verb homograph.

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