Studying Mandarin Tone sandhi in interaction

Abstract

The Mandarin low-dipping tone (T3) undergoes an alteration, tone sandhi, when followed by another T3. The resulting F0 is superficially the same as that of the rising tone (T2). We investigated how Mandarin speakers adapt their speech production to overcome potential ambiguities induced by T3 sandhi during an interactive task. Ten pairs of Chinese participants completed an interactive phrase matching task. Participants were shown displays with Chinese phrases (surname + title, e.g., 1a-b). One participant read an indicated phrase which the other selected from their display. There were two conditions. In the no sandhi condition (1a-b), the title did not induce sandhi, and should result in distinct F0 patterns for the surnames. In the sandhi condition (2a-b), the title induced T3 sandhi, and should result in homophonous surnames. 1a 卢侦探 (lu2 tʃ̺ən1tan4 “Detective Lu”) 2a 卢主任 (lu2 tʃ̺u3ɹ̺ən4 “Director Lu”) 1b 鲁侦探 (lu3 tʃ̺ən1tan4 “Detective Lu”) 2b 鲁主任 (lu3 tʃ̺u3ɹ̺ən4 “Director Lu”) Task performance showed clear evidence of sandhi-induced ambiguity. Examination of accuracy and tone acoustics suggested that pairs deployed different strategies to attempt to overcome sandhi-induced ambiguity, including exaggerating F0 rise or T3 duration, or adding a pause to avoid applying sandhi processes.