Chunking or predicting – frequency information and reduction in the perception of multi-word sequences

Frequently used linguistic structures become entrenched in memory; this is often assumed to make their consecutive parts more predictable, as well as fuse them into a single unit (chunking). High frequency moreover leads to a propensity for phonetic reduction. We present a word recognition experiment which tests how frequency information (string frequency, transitional probability) interacts with reduction in speech perception. Detection of the...