Tone 2 Research Articles

Effects of auditory processing ability on the phonological and acoustic processing of Mandarin tone by Thai speakers: An ERP study

This study investigated how Mandarin-naïve Thai speakers’ auditory processing ability affects their phonological and acoustic processing of Mandarin tone. The participants were 20 native Mandarin speakers and 19 Mandarin-naïve Thai speakers. A 10-step computer synthesized Tone 1 (T1)–Tone 2 (T2) continuum was manipulated for identification task. The stimulus 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 from the T1–T2 continuum were used in a multi-feature passive oddball ERP paradigm, encompassing within-category and across-category stimuli with equivalent large-scale and small-scale acoustic intervals. We used pitch discrimination, melody reproduction, and rhythm reproduction to assess participants’ auditory processing ability. The identification results showed that Mandarin-naïve Thai speakers’ exhibit a weaker categorical perception (CP) of Mandarin tones compared to the native Mandarin speakers, a pattern consistent with ERP results observed at both sensor and source levels. Further analysis revealed higher auditory processing ability leads to enhanced CP of Mandarin tone for learners from Thai, and the same improvement is observed in the melody memory for acoustic processing of Mandarin tone. These findings add to our understanding on how individual differences influence phonological and acoustic processing of Mandarin tone during the initial stage of second speech learning.

Effects of Synthesized Inflectional Tones on the Perception of Mandarin Third Tone by Native Chinese Speakers and Korean L2 Learners

This study investigated how Chinese Tone 3 (T3) was perceived by native speakers and L2 learners. In the current experiment, participants included 20 Chinese speakers and 20 advanced-level Korean L2 learners. The stimuli were 13 flectional tones with different ending pitch values (categorized as 211, 212, 213, 214, and 215), synthesized by Praat. Results indicated that the tone with a pitch value of 211 was most commonly perceived as T3, while other tones were mostly perceived as T2 (mid-rising tone). Both native Chinese speakers and the Korean L2 learners with over five years of Chinese learning tended to perceive 211 as T3, suggesting their sensitivity to pitch changes and contour cues. In addition, the Korean L2 learners relied more on the ending pitch value, with higher values leading to an increased perception of T2. The findings suggest the effects of perceptual mechanisms and instructional methods in L2 acquisition of Chinese tones.

Atypical prosodic realization by Mandarin-speaking autistic children: Evidence from tone sandhi and neutral tone

Introduction Atypical prosodic features have been widely reported in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), primarily in non-tonal language speakers. Nevertheless, the prosodic realizations in autistic people who speak tonal languages were relatively understudied. This study aimed to investigate the acoustic and phonetic patterns at the word-level speech in Mandarin-speaking autistic and typically developing (TD) children at different age ranges.Methods Thirty Mandarin-speaking autistic children (15 three- to five-year-olds and 15 six- to eight-year-olds) were recruited into the ASD group. The TD group consisted of 30 age- and gender-matched children. We employed a picture-naming task to elicit the spontaneous speech production of Mandarin disyllabic words in which tone change processes occur, namely Tone 3 (T3) sandhi and neutral tone (T0).Results The phonetic analysis showed that the ASD group generally could produce typical-like T3 sandhi and T0 in terms of pitch height. However, relative to the TD group, they exhibited flatter pitch contours during T3 sandhi production. Moreover, the acoustic pitch mean of citation tones in the ASD group was also significantly higher, accompanied by more rigid pitch curves in contour tones. In addition, the atypical temporal realization in the ASD group was manifested by the longer duration of T0 and the earlier inflection position of T3.Conclusions Mandarin-speaking autistic children under eight had the phonological ability to produce context-dependent tones based on connected tonal information at the word level. Nevertheless, their phonetic prosodic realization of tone change processes was atypical. Our findings provide evidence of atypical prosody in autistic children who speak tone languages. Clinically, these findings may be attributable to underlying neural differences in autistic children.

Encoding category-level and context-specific phonological information at different stages: An EEG study of Mandarin third-tone sandhi word production

Pronunciation of words or morphemes may vary systematically in different phonological contexts, but it remains unclear how different levels of phonological information are encoded in speech production. In this study, we investigated the online planning process of Mandarin Tone 3 (T3) sandhi, a case of phonological alternation whereby a low-dipping tone (T3) changes to a Tone 2 (T2)-like rising tone when followed by another T3. To examine the time course of the encoding of the abstract category-level (underlying form) and context-specific phonological form (surface form) of T3, we conducted an electroencephalographic (EEG) study with a phonologically-primed picture naming task and examined the event-related potentials (ERPs) time-locked to the stimulus onset as well as speech response onset. The behavioral results showed that targets primed by T3 or T2 primes yielded shorter naming latencies than those primed by control primes. Importantly, the EEG data revealed that T3 primes elicited larger positive amplitude over broad frontocentral regions roughly in the 320–550 ms time window of stimulus-locked ERP and −500 to −400 ms time window of response-locked ERP, whereas T2 primes elicited larger negative amplitude over left frontocentral regions roughly in the −240 to −100 ms time window of response-locked ERP. These results indicate that the underlying and the surface form are encoded at different processing stages. The former presumably occurs in the earlier phonological encoding stage, while the latter probably occurs in the later phonetic encoding or motor preparation stage. The current study offers important implications for understanding the processing of phonological alternations and tonal encoding in Chinese word production.

The cognitive processing of tone sandhi in different information structural status during dialogue comprehension

ABSTRACT Mandarin tone 3 (T3) sandhi is a phonological alternation where a T3 changes to a rising tone when followed by another T3. The present event-related potential (ERP) study examined how sandhi words are processed during dialogue comprehension. Following different wh-questions, the answers embedded a sandhi word in which the first syllable was either pronounced as post-sandhi T3, pre-sandhi T3, or mispronounced T4 at the focus or background position. The results showed that the naturalness rating decreased as the amplitude of a late positivity (LPC) increased in the order of post-sandhi, pre-sandhi, and mispronunciation conditions, reflecting a reanalysis process after encountering the unexpected tone. At the background (vs. focus) position, the effect was more posterior for the mispronunciation condition, and disappeared for the pre-sandhi condition. Our data suggest that the processing of sandhi words is not only influenced by their tonal realisation, but also moderated by their information structural status.

Phonetic accommodation of tone: Reversing a tone merger-in-progress via imitation

Previous literature has documented phonetic accommodation for various segmental and suprasegmental features, but the accommodation of tone remains under-explored. The current study contributes to the literature by investigating the accommodation of two merging tones in Hong Kong Cantonese, mid-level Tone 3 (T3) and low-level Tone 6 (T6), in a speech shadowing experiment. Specifically, we ask whether shadowers will reverse the merging trend after exposure to a model talker with distinct T3–T6 productions and if so, what factors will modulate the accommodative behaviors. Evidence for phonetic imitation is observed, but the effect varies by shadower’s baseline production of T3–T6 distinction and across different model talkers. Shadowers with less baseline tonal distinction exhibit greater degrees of imitation, suggesting that greater linguistic distance facilitates imitation. More robust imitation is observed in the young model talker condition, but the effect is most likely driven by the talker’s idiosyncratic production. Shadowers’ impression of the model talker and attitudes towards ongoing changes in the language did not show substantial impact on imitation. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of speech perception and production.

Testing the applicability of third tone sandhi at the intonation boundary

Abstract The purpose of this study is to test the applicability of Tone Three Sandhi (T3S) when the critical syllable is a monosyllabic topic preceding a topic boundary. A recitation task from 37 native speakers of Taiwan Mandarin was employed. The results from human judgements indicated that the participants predominantly produced the critical syllables with Tone 3 (T3). Additionally, the fundamental frequency of the critical syllables demonstrated a falling contour, showing that T3S was not applied. Intonation break-ups and the prolongation of the critical syllables lent strong support to the view that the topic syllable was at an intonation/phonological phrase-final position. The findings can be elegantly accommodated by constraint-based analyses, which propose that T3S must be avoided when two T3 syllables are separated by an intonation/phonological phrase boundary. Issues relating to pauses, speech rates and word frequency effects are also discussed.

The Effects of Intrinsic Acoustic Cues on Categorical Perception in Children with Cochlear Implants

Many previous studies researched the influence of external cues on speech perception, yet little is known pertaining to the role of intrinsic cues in categorical perception of Mandarin vowels and tones by children with cochlear implants (CI). This study investigated the effects of intrinsic acoustic cues on categorical perception in children with CIs, compared to normal-hearing (NH) children. Categorical perception experiment paradigm was applied to evaluate their identification and discrimination abilities in perceiving /i/-/u/ with static intrinsic formants and Tone 1 (T1)-Tone 2 (T2) with dynamic intrinsic fundamental frequency (F0) contours. Results for the NH group showed that vowel continuum of /i/-/u/ was less categorically perceived than T1-T2 continuum with significantly wider boundary width and less alignment between the discrimination peak and the boundary position. However, a different categorical perception pattern was depicted for the CI group. Specifically, the CI group exhibited less categoricalness in both /i/-/u/ and T1-T2. It suggested that the effects of intrinsic acoustic cues on categorical perception was proved for the normal-hearing children, while not for the hearing-impaired children with cochlear implants. In conclusion, acoustically dynamic cues can facilitate categorical perception of speech in NH children, whereas this effect will be inhibited by difficulties in processing spectral F0 information as in the CI users.

The Role of Surface and Underlying Forms When Processing Tonal Alternations in Mandarin Chinese: A Mismatch Negativity Study.

Phonological alternation (sound change depending on the phonological environment) poses challenges to spoken word recognition models. Mandarin Chinese T3 sandhi is such a phenomenon in which a tone 3 (T3) changes into a tone 2 (T2) when followed by another T3. In a mismatch negativity (MMN) study examining Mandarin Chinese T3 sandhi, participants passively listened to either a T2 word [tʂu2 je4] /tʂu2 je4/, a T3 word [tʂu3 je4] /tʂu3 je4/, a sandhi word [tʂu2 jen3] /tʂu3 jen3/, or a mix of T3 and sandhi word standards. The deviant in each condition was a T2 word [tʂu2]. Results showed an MMN only in the T2 and T3 conditions but not in the Sandhi or Mix conditions. All conditions also yielded omission MMNs. This pattern cannot be explained based on the surface forms of standards and deviants; rather these data suggest an underspecified or underlying T3 stored linguistic representation used in spoken word processing.

Investigating the Branching of Chinese Classifier Phrases: Evidence from Speech Perception and Production / 汉语量词词组的分支：语言产生和语言感知的证据

The formal structure of the construction formed by a numeral (Num), a sortal classifier (C) or mensural classifier (M), and a noun (N), is controversial, as both left-branching [[Num C/M] N] and right-branching [Num [C/M N]] structures have been argued for in the literature. In this paper we report two psycholinguistic experiments on speech production and perception in Mandarin to investigate this branching issue. First, we applied the syntax-phonology interface of tone 3 (T3) sandhi and performed a phonological analysis of native speakers’ tone sandhi patterns of [Num C/M N] phrases composed of T3 monosyllabic words. Second, we conducted a click-detection experiment to see how native speakers would perceive a click inserted in a C/M phrase composed of monosyllabic words, as compared to when it is inserted in other syntactic structures with attested left or right-branching. Results from both experiments supported the leftbranching structure of classifier phrases.

Mechanisms of tone sandhi rule application by tonal and non-tonal non-native speakers

This study is the first comprehensive acoustic study to examine the acquisition of two Mandarin tone sandhi rules: the third tone sandhi and the more phonetically motivated, half-third sandhi rule by both tonal (Cantonese) and non-tonal (American English) speakers using a Wug Test. Participants were asked to form disyllables from two monosyllabic morphemes. To test for the operation of the lexical versus the computation mechanisms in sandhi rule application, both real and various types of wug (nonsense) morphemes were included. Functional data analysis revealed that Cantonese and American speakers apply the two rules similarly on both real words and wug words, suggesting that the sandhi forms are stored as part of the representation of the abstract Tone 3 (T3) category, and computation of allophonic variants is likely to be involved during production. However, in their computation of tone sandhi rules, L2 learners showed less detailed and less accurate production of tonal contours compared to native speakers, due, perhaps, to less detailed phonological representations of allophonic variants. In general, Cantonese speakers performed better than American speakers. Perceptual mapping between Mandarin sandhi T3 to existing Cantonese tone categories may be responsible for the observed pitch contours among Cantonese speakers. Finally, no phonetic bias was found in the application of the two sandhi rules among these groups of L2 learners, which is likely due to more variability in L2’s speech, obscuring any differences that may exist.

Effects of language proficiency in categorical perception of Mandarin Chinese tones

This study compared the perception of Mandarin Chinese lexical tones by 20 adult native Mandarin Chinese speakers and 17 Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners with different levels of Chinese proficiency. We were particularly interested in confirming the effects of language experience and further assessing how Chinese proficiency might influence the perception of Mandarin lexical tones. Three types of continuum were used in identification and discrimination tasks, including tone 1 (T1)/tone 2 (T2), tone 1/tone 4 (T4) and tone 2/tone 4. Unlike the native speakers of Chinese who demonstrated clear categorical perception for all the continua, the CFL learners showed reduced accuracy in identification and discrimination results. Furthermore, proficiency data correlated with categorical perception (CP) of Mandarin lexical tones, suggesting that categorical perception of key phonological contrasts in the second language can be considered as a reliable indicator of language proficiency.This study compared the perception of Mandarin Chinese lexical tones by 20 adult native Mandarin Chinese speakers and 17 Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners with different levels of Chinese proficiency. We were particularly interested in confirming the effects of language experience and further assessing how Chinese proficiency might influence the perception of Mandarin lexical tones. Three types of continuum were used in identification and discrimination tasks, including tone 1 (T1)/tone 2 (T2), tone 1/tone 4 (T4) and tone 2/tone 4. Unlike the native speakers of Chinese who demonstrated clear categorical perception for all the continua, the CFL learners showed reduced accuracy in identification and discrimination results. Furthermore, proficiency data correlated with categorical perception (CP) of Mandarin lexical tones, suggesting that categorical perception of key phonological contrasts in the second language can be considered as a reliable indicator of language proficiency.

The development of abstract representations of tone sandhi.

Phonological processes result in surface variants of the same words across phonological contexts, posing potential word learning challenges for children. Mandarin tone sandhi is a tonal process changing Tone 3 (T3) in different tonal and syntactic contexts, resulting in allophonic variants of T3 in connected speech. Previous studies found that Mandarin-learning 3-year-olds were able to productively apply tone sandhi processes in novel compounds, correctly using the allophonic variants of T3 in appropriate tone sandhi contexts (Tang et al., 2018, 2019). However, it remains unclear how these variants are represented in children's mental lexicon. This study, therefore, examined Mandarin-learning children's perceptual representation of allophonic variants of T3. Ninety-four 3- to 5-year-olds and 29 adults were tested. Sensitivity to allophonic mispronunciations of T3 syllables in novel tone sandhi compounds was measured using a visual fixation procedure. The results showed that children, like adults, treated tone sandhi mispronunciations as target-like. Thus, in recognizing novel tone sandhi words, Mandarin-speaking children exhibit flexibility in accommodating the allophonic variants of T3, suggesting that they have developed an abstract T3 category in their mental lexicon. The findings reveal the effect of phonological processes in shaping children's phonological representations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Developmental changes in categorical perception of Mandarin Chinese tones

This study examined developmental changes in categorical perception of Mandarin Chinese lexical tones by 22 adults and 16 10-year-olds, who were all native Mandarin Chinese speakers. The speech stimuli included three types of continuum, tone 1 (T1)/tone 2 (T2), tone 1/tone 4 (T4) and tone 2/tone 4. The experimental protocol used conventional identification and discrimination tasks. The results confirmed categorical perception of the tonal continua by both adult and child groups. Refined tests further revealed the existence of T1 category with two phonetic boundaries in the T2/T4 continuum. More importantly, age-dependent differences were observed in discrimination accuracy and sensitivity to pitch height. Collectively, the data suggest that although adult-like categorical perception of lexical tones can be found by 10 years of age and earlier as the literature suggested, the dynamic developmental trajectory in fine-tuning the categorical perception of lexical tones extends beyond the age of 10.

Are Asian Language Speakers Similar or Different? The Perception of Mandarin Lexical Tones by Naïve Listeners from Tonal Language Backgrounds: A Preliminary Comparison of Thai and Vietnamese Listeners

Mandarin is one of the most representative tonal languages in the world with four tone categories (Tone 1 (T1): high level (ā); Tone 2 (T2): high rising (á); Tone 3 (T3): dipping (ǎ); Tone 4 (T4): high falling (à)). Learning Mandarin tones is known to be difficult for speakers from diverse linguistic backgrounds. The perception of Mandarin tones by naïve, non-native listeners from two tonal languages with a larger tone inventory than Mandarin—Thai and Vietnamese—was examined. The listeners’ discrimination accuracy of six tone pairs (T1–T2, T1–T3, T1–T4, T2–T3, T2–T4, T3–T4) was assessed and compared to that of native speakers of Mandarin on the one hand and Australian English on the other hand. The Thai and Vietnamese groups were clearly less accurate than the Mandarin group and showed a different pattern of results from each other. The Australian English group was less accurate than the Thai group only for T2–T4 and did not differ from the Vietnamese group for any of the pairs. Taken together, these findings suggest that first language tone knowledge may not necessarily be facilitative and that lack of experience with lexical tones may not disadvantage listeners from non-tonal language backgrounds in processing unfamiliar tones.

The Development of Mismatch Responses to Mandarin Lexical Tone in 12- to 24-Month-Old Infants.

This study explores the development of mismatch responses (MMRs) to Mandarin lexical tone changes in infants at 12, 18, and 24 months of age using the multi-deviant oddball paradigm with the low dipping Tone 3 (T3) as the standard, the high level Tone 1 (T1) as the large, and the high rising Tone 2 (T2) as the small deviant. The results show that the large acoustic change between T1/T3 elicited mismatch negativity (MMN) in all three age groups. The small acoustic change between T2/T3 elicited a positive mismatch response (P-MMR) at 12 and 18 months of age, but no MMR was found to the T2/T3 change at 24 months. The coexistence of MMN and P-MMR in the same age group implies that different mechanisms were used for discriminating large and small deviants. Infants were able to detect the T1/T3 change automatically and showed adult-like MMN as early as 6 months of age. However, the detection of the T2/T3 change remains effortful in infants under 24 months of age. These findings support the notion that MMN and P-MMR may be used to index the maturation of speech perception.

Differential sensitivity to changes in pitch acceleration in the auditory brainstem and cortex

The cortical pitch-specific response (CPR) is differentially sensitive to pitch contours varying in rate of acceleration—time-variant Mandarin Tone2 (T2) versus constant, linear rising ramp (Linear)—as a function of language experience (Krishnan, Gandour, & Suresh, 2014). CPR and brainstem frequency following response (FFR) data were recorded concurrently from native Mandarin listeners using the same stimuli. Results showed that T2 elicited larger responses than Linear at both cortical and brainstem levels (CPR: Na–Pb, Pb–Nb; FFR). However, Pb–Nb exhibited a larger difference in magnitude between T2 and Linear than either Na–Pb or FFR. This finding highlights differential weighting of brain responses elicited by a specific temporal attribute of pitch. Consistent with the notion of a distributed, integrated hierarchical pitch processing network, temporal attributes of pitch are differentially weighted by subcortical and cortical level processing.

Asymmetries in the perception of Mandarin tones: Evidence from mismatch negativity.

Most investigations of the representation and processing of speech sounds focus on their segmental representations, and considerably less is known about the representation of suprasegmental phenomena (e.g., Mandarin tones). Here we examine the mismatch negativity (MMN) response to the contrast between Mandarin Tone 3 (T3) and other tones using a passive oddball paradigm. Because the MMN response has been shown to be sensitive to the featural contents of speech sounds in a way that is compatible with underspecification theories of phonological representations, here, we test the predictions of such theories regarding suprasegmental phenomena. Assuming T3 to be underspecified in Mandarin (because it has variable surface representations and low pitch), we predicted that an asymmetric MMN response would be elicited when T3 is contrasted with another tone. In 2 of our 3 experiments, this was observed, but in non-Mandarin-speaking participants as well as native speakers, suggesting that the locus of the effect was perceptual (acoustic or phonetic) rather than phonological. In a third experiment, the predicted asymmetry was limited to native speakers. These results highlight the importance of distinguishing phonological and perceptual contributions to MMN asymmetries, but also demonstrate a role of abstract phonological representations in which certain information is underspecified in long-term memory.

Priming the representation of Mandarin tone 3 sandhi words

ABSTRACTPhonological alternation poses problems for spoken word recognition. In Mandarin Tone 3 sandhi, a Tone 3 syllable changes to a Tone 2 syllable when followed by another Tone 3 syllable. A traditional phonological account assumes that the initial syllable of Mandarin disyllabic sandhi words is Tone 3 (T3) underlyingly, but becomes Tone 2 (T2) on the surface. In an auditory–auditory priming lexical decision experiment, each disyllabic tone sandhi target word (e.g., chu3-li3) was preceded by one of three monosyllabic primes: a T2 prime (Surface-Tone overlap) (chu2), a T3 prime (Underlying-Tone overlap) (chu3), or a control prime (Baseline condition) (chu1). Results showed that Tone 3 primes (Underlying-Tone) elicited significantly stronger facilitation effects for the sandhi targets than Tone 2 primes (Surface-Tone), with little effect of target frequency. The data are examined in terms of the contribution of underlying representations for models of spoken word recognition.

Cortical pitch response components show differential sensitivity to native and nonnative pitch contours

The aim of this study is to evaluate how nonspeech pitch contours of varying shape influence latency and amplitude of cortical pitch-specific response (CPR) components differentially as a function of language experience. Stimuli included time-varying, high rising Mandarin Tone 2 (T2) and linear rising ramp (Linear), and steady-state (Flat). Both the latency and magnitude of CPR components were differentially modulated by (i) the overall trajectory of pitch contours (time-varying vs. steady-state), (ii) their pitch acceleration rates (changing vs. constant), and (iii) their linguistic status (lexical vs. non-lexical). T2 elicited larger amplitude than Linear in both language groups, but size of the effect was larger in Chinese than English. The magnitude of CPR components elicited by T2 were larger for Chinese than English at the right temporal electrode site. Using the CPR, we provide evidence in support of experience-dependent modulation of dynamic pitch contours at an early stage of sensory processing.