Abstract
This study hypothesizes that the tone 3 Sandhi rule in Mandarin Chinese results from a change in organization of tone gestures. Tone 3 in pre‐pausal position has a low falling‐rising pitch contour, but when it precedes another tone 3 in the same domain, it becomes a derived tone 2 (rising contour). It is hypothesized that tone 3 is composed of sequential L(ow) and H(igh) tone gestures; since tone 2 is composed of synchronous L and H [Gao (2008)], the derived tone 2 results from shifting the sequential relationship to be synchronous. This hypothesis is tested by a production experiment in which speakers repeated phrases that include a pre‐pausal tone 3 followed by another tone 3 in a separate domain. Production rate was gradually increased since it has been shown that increasing speech rates could induce gestural synchrony. Results indicate that the H gesture becomes more synchronous with the L gesture as has been predicted by the hypothesis.
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