Tone recognition of the two checked tones in Taiwanese.

Abstract

The present study uses the gating paradigm to investigate the processing of the checked tones in Taiwanese. Taiwanese checked tones are the tones in syllables ending in stops /p, t, k, ʔ/. In terms of tone value, there are two kinds, high falling (e.g., kut5 “slippery”) and mid falling (e.g., kut3 “bone”). The two checked tones are each other’s sandhi tone and since both of them are so short in duration that some people claim that they are under a merging process. Therefore, gating, a paradigm that provides us with precise control of processing details, is used to show that the two checked tones are distinguishable in processing. Stimuli are CaC syllables spoken in isolation (ISO) and taken from four different boundary positions: IP‐initial, tone‐group‐initial, word‐initial, and syllable‐initial. In the gating task, the initial consonant of each syllable forms the first gate, and the subsequent gates are constructed with 40 ms increments. The subjects are asked to identify the tone for each gated stimulus and give a confidence rating for the judgment.