Perceptual confusability of French vowels

The confusability of sounds is argued to both reflect phonological structure [e.g., Boomershine et al. (2008)] and be a source of phonological variability and change [e.g., Ohala (1981), Hume (1998)]. We present the results of a perception task in which 25 Parisian French-speaking participants identified the French vowels [i e ɛ y o/ œ ə a u o ɔ ɔ̃ ɛ̃ ɑ̃], or ∅, in an aC_Ca context, using standard orthography in key words. The durations of the vowel in the vowel-containing stimuli were manipulated to be 0, 15, 25, 50, or 100% of their original durations. We can therefore determine which vowels are most confusable with each other (and thus likely to be the target for either mergers or dissimilatory processes) and which are most confusable with zero (and thus likely to be the target of processes such as deletion, assimilation, and metathesis). Results show high accuracy for [a i y u], even with very short durations; some degree of confusability within the nasal vowels; high confusability rates within the mid-front rounded vowels; and a tendency for zero to be confused with one of the mid-front rounded vowels. These results align with observed phonological patterns in French.