| Summary: | Typological studies of place assimilation show that nasal consonants are more likely to
assimilate in place than oral stops (Cho, 1990; Jun, 1995, 2004; Mohanan, 1993). Jun (1995, 2004) argues
that this typological asymmetry derives from a difference in the perceptibility of the place contrasts in
nasal consonants and in oral stops. Since the place contrasts in nasals are perceptually weaker than the
place contrasts in oral stops, speakers are more willing to neutralize the former. However, the previous
phonetic and psycholinguistic experiments do not provide unambiguous evidence for the weaker
perceptibility of the place contrasts in nasal consonants (Hura et al., 1992; Mohr & Wang, 1968; Pols,
1983; Winters, 2002). To offer additional experimental findings bearing on this debate, this paper reports
two similarity judgment experiments and two identification experiments in noise, which all show the
lower perceptibility of the place contrasts in nasal consonants in coda. The results are compatible with—
and thus can lend support to—Jun’s (1995, 2004) idea that the asymmetry in place assimilation may result
from a difference in the perceptibility of place contrasts.
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