The Role of Categorical Perception and Acoustic Details in the Processing of Mandarin Tonal Alternations in Contexts: An Eye-Tracking Study.

Jung-Yueh Tu,Yu-Fu Chien

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.756921

Abstract

This study investigated the perception of Mandarin tonal alternations in disyllabic words. In Mandarin, a low-dipping Tone3 is converted to a high-rising Tone2 when followed by another Tone3, known as third tone sandhi. Although previous studies showed statistically significant differences in F0 between a high-rising Sandhi-Tone3 (T3) and a Tone2, native Mandarin listeners failed to correctly categorize these two tones in perception tasks. The current study utilized the visual-world paradigm in eye-tracking to further examine whether acoustic details in lexical tone aid lexical access in Mandarin. Results showed that Mandarin listeners tend to process Tone2 as Tone2 whereas they tend to first process Sandhi-T3 as both Tone3 and Tone2, then later detect the acoustic differences between the two tones revealed by the sandhi context, and finally activate the target word during lexical access. The eye-tracking results suggest that subtle acoustic details of F0 may facilitate lexical access in automatic fashion in a tone language.

Highlights

Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language, which uses pitch to distinguish lexical meaning
The findings demonstrate that Mandarin listeners tend to process canonical-rising T2 (CR-T2) as T2 whereas they tend to first process sandhi-rising tone 3 (SR-T3) as both T3 and T2, and later detect the acoustic differences between the two tones revealed by the sandhi context, and activate the target word during lexical access
This study explores the extent of neutralization of sandhi-rising T3 (SRT3) and CR-T2 in Mandarin

Summary

Introduction

Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language, which uses pitch to distinguish lexical meaning. It has four lexical tones, a high level Tone, a mid-rising Tone, a low-dipping Tone, a high-falling Tone as well as a neutral tone (Chao, 1930) With this tonal inventory, Mandarin is well-known for its third tone sandhi, where a low dipping Tone (T3) immediately followed by another T3 is altered into a rising tone, similar to the mid-rising Tone (T2) (Chao, 1930; Lin, 2007). Mandarin is well-known for its third tone sandhi, where a low dipping Tone (T3) immediately followed by another T3 is altered into a rising tone, similar to the mid-rising Tone (T2) (Chao, 1930; Lin, 2007) This third tone sandhi leads to the situation that the sandhi-rising (SR) T3 and canonical-rising (CR) T2 are both realized as rising tones and they seem to be neutralized in the given context. Previous studies showed statistically significant differences in F0 between a SR-T3 and a CR-T2, native Mandarin listeners failed to correctly categorize these two tones in perception tasks (Peng, 2000)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion