The Interaction of Vocal Context and Lexical Predictability

Abstract

The study tested the hypothesis that there is a positive relation between increasing vocal and written context and the predictability of words deleted from texts of spontaneous speech. 5 steps of increasing context were distributed among 8 treatment groups. The first 4 steps ranged from deleted typed context alone to deleted typed context plus typed and recorded versions of additional undeleted context. The fifth step was a recorded version (appropriately deleted) of the deleted typed context that was added, in 4 of the treatment groups, to each of the first four steps. Analysis of variance yielded an F of 6.347 for the effects of the first 4 steps, and an F of 30.864 for the effect of the maximum, or deleted recorded context. The results suggest that vocal context does facilitate predictability when immediately pertinent to the predictive context or in combination with additional lexical context.

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