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Use of context in the reading of ‹c› and ‹g›
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Description: Writing systems sometimes deviate from one-to-one associations between letters and phonemes, but the deviations are often predictable from sublexical context. For initial ‹c› and ‹g› in English, deviations from the typical /k/ and /g/ pronunciations are influenced by adjacent context (the following vowel, as in center versus canter) and nonadjacent context (the presence of a Latinate versus a basic suffix, as in gigantic versus giggling). We conducted two experiments with participants ranging in reading level from early elementary school to college to study the development of context use. Experiment 1 focused on adjacent context and Experiment 2 also examined nonadjacent context. We also examined these contextual influences in English words in reading materials for readers of different levels.