Tone perception in Far Eastern languages

Abstract

This study investigated the perceptual dimensions of tone and the effect of linguistic experience on a listener’s perception of tone. Fifty listeners from each of four Oriental tone languages (Cantonese, Mandarin, Taiwanese, Thai) and fifty listeners from a nontone language (English) were asked to make direct paired-comparison judgments of tone dissimilarity. Stimuli consisted of 19 different fundamental frequency trajectories (five level, four rising, four falling, three falling-rising, three rising-falling) superimposed on a synthetic speech-like monosyllable. The dissimilarities data were organized into 250 dissimilarity matrices and analyzed by the INDSCAL multidimensional scaling model. The INDSCAL analysis revealed two dimensions which were interpreted primarily as ‘height’ and ‘direction’. The relative importance of these dimensions varied systematically across listeners based on language group membership. The direction dimension was relatively more important to listeners of a tone language than a nontone language, and to Thai listeners in comparison to Chinese. Discriminant analysis revealed that listeners of tone languages versus a nontone language, Thai listeners versus Chinese, and Cantonese listeners versus Mandarin and Taiwanese, can be correctly classified into their respective language groups on the basis of their pattern of dimension weights. Hierarchical clustering analysis indicated that differences in clustering of the stimulus tones can be related to abstract structural properties of listeners’ phonological systems.