Contour Tones Research Articles

Why Aren't All Cantonese Tones Equally Confusing to English Listeners?

English listeners often struggle to perceive tones, but some are easier than others. This study examined these phenomena grounded in the feature weighing perspective (FWP) and the Perceptual Assimilation Model for Suprasegmentals (PAM-S). Forty-seven English and Cantonese listeners completed 4,212 trials of Cantonese tone discrimination and sequence recall tasks. The English listeners showed asymmetrical perceptual patterns of discrimination but not sequence recall. Specifically, these English listeners discriminated T1-T5, T3-T5, and T4-T5 more accurately than T1-T4, T3-T4, and T1-T3. However, they recalled the contour tone and level tone sequences with similar accuracies. Results of the discrimination task aligned with the predictions of PAM-S but not FWP. However, results of the sequence recall task did not support PAM-S. Together, these results suggest that PAM-S only applies to simple discrimination, not abstract phonological processing with a high memory load.

Segmental and suprasegmental encoding of speaker confidence in Wuxi dialect vowels.

Wuxi dialect is a variation of Wu dialect spoken in eastern China and is characterized by a rich tonal system. Compared with standard Mandarin speakers, those of Wuxi dialect as their mother tongue can be more efficient in varying vocal cues to encode communicative meanings in speech communication. While literature has demonstrated that speakers encode high vs. low confidence in global prosodic cues at the sentence level, it is unknown how speakers' intended confidence is encoded at a more local, phonetic level. This study aimed to explore the effects of speakers' intended confidence on both prosodic and formant features of vowels in two lexical tones (the flat tone and the contour tone) of Wuxi dialect. Words of a single vowel were spoken in confident, unconfident, or neutral tone of voice by native Wuxi dialect speakers using a standard elicitation procedure. Linear-mixed effects modeling and parametric bootstrapping testing were performed. The results showed that (1) the speakers raised both F1 and F2 in the confident level (compared with the neutral-intending expression). Additionally, F1 can distinguish between the confident and unconfident expressions; (2) Compared with the neutral-intending expression, the speakers raised mean f0, had a greater variation of f0 and prolonged pronunciation time in the unconfident level while they raised mean intensity, had a greater variation of intensity and prolonged pronunciation time in the confident level. (3) The speakers modulated mean f0 and mean intensity to a larger extent on the flat tone than the contour tone to differentiate between levels of confidence in the voice, while they modulated f0 and intensity range more only on the contour tone. These findings shed new light on the mechanisms of segmental and suprasegmental encoding of speaker confidence and lack of confidence at the vowel level, highlighting the interplay of lexical tone and vocal expression in speech communication.

Atypical patterns of tone production in tone-language-speaking children with autism.

Speakers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are found to exhibit atypical pitch patterns in speech production. However, little is known about the production of lexical tones (T1, T2, T3, T4) as well as neutral tones (T1N, T2N, T3N, T4N) by tone-language speakers with ASD. Thus, this study investigated the height and shape of tones produced by Mandarin-speaking children with ASD and their age-matched typically developing (TD) peers. A pronunciation experiment was conducted in which the participants were asked to produce reduplicated nouns. The findings from the acoustic analyses showed that although ASD children generally produced both lexical tones and neutral tones with distinct tonal contours, there were significant differences between the ASD and TD groups for tone height and shape for T1/T1N, T3/T3N, and T4/T4N. However, we did not find any difference in T2/T2N. These data implied that the atypical acoustic pattern in the ASD group could be partially due to the suppression of the F0 range. Moreover, we found that ASD children tended to produce more errors for T2/T2N, T3/T3N than for T1/T1N, T4/T4N. The pattern of tone errors could be explained by the acquisition principle of pitch, similarities among different tones, and tone sandhi. We thus concluded that deficits in pitch processing could be responsible for the atypical tone pattern of ASD children, and speculated that the atypical tonal contours might also be due to imitation deficits. The present findings may eventually help enhance the comprehensive understanding of the representation of atypical pitch patterns in ASD across languages.

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.

Visual-Auditory Integration and High-Variability Speech Can Facilitate Mandarin Chinese Tone Identification.

Previous studies have demonstrated that tone identification can be facilitated when auditory tones are integrated with visual information that depicts the pitch contours of the auditory tones (hereafter, visual effect). This study investigates this visual effect in combined visual-auditory integration with high- and low-variability speech and examines whether one's prior tonal-language learning experience shapes the strength of this visual effect. Thirty Mandarin-naïve listeners, 25 Mandarin second language learners, and 30 native Mandarin listeners participated in a tone identification task in which participants judged whether an auditory tone was rising or falling in pitch. Moving arrows depicted the pitch contours of the auditory tones. A priming paradigm was used with the target auditory tones primed by four multimodal conditions: no stimuli (A-V-), visual-only stimuli (A-V+), auditory-only stimuli (A+V-), and both auditory and visual stimuli (A+V+). For Mandarin naïve listeners, the visual effect in accuracy produced under the cross-modal integration (A+V+ vs. A+V-) was superior to a unimodal approach (A-V+ vs. A-V-), as evidenced by a higher d prime of A+V+ as opposed to A+V-. However, this was not the case in response time. Additionally, the visual effect in accuracy and response time under the unimodal approach only occurred for high-variability speech, not for low-variability speech. Across the three groups of listeners, we found that the less tonal-language learning experience one had, the stronger the visual effect. Our study revealed the visual-auditory advantage and disadvantage of the visual effect and the joint contribution of visual-auditory integration and high-variability speech on facilitating tone perception via the process of speech symbolization and categorization. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21357729.

Acoustic cues to the perception of Danish stød

This study examines the effect of F0 and creak (raspiness) on Danish stød perception. Stød is typically characterized by high fundamental frequency (F0) at the beginning of the syllable and low F0, often with creaky phonation, at the end of the syllable (Fischer-Jørgensen, 1989). However, it is not clear how these acoustic cues, high F0 at rhyme onset, low F0 at rhyme offset, and creak, contribute to the percept of stød for listeners. A nonce word ABX task and a perceptual rhyming task were conducted. Results from the ABX task indicate that nonce words with high-mid or high-low F0 contours and added raspiness (Corretge, 2012) or a sustained high F0 with or without raspiness were more likely to be considered the “same” as naturally produced nonce words with stød. In the rhyming task, nonce words with high F0 and raspiness were significantly more likely to be considered as rhyming with a naturally produced real word with stød for all tonal contours tested. Overall, the results indicate that both high F0 onset{Citation} and creaky phonation contribute to the stød percept. Furthermore, both cues were almost always needed to increase stød responses in both tasks, suggesting little evidence of cue trading.

The effects of alphabetic literacy, linguistic-processing demand and tone type on the dichotic listening of lexical tones.

Brain lateralization of lexical tone processing remains a matter of debate. In this study we used a dichotic listening paradigm to examine the influences of the knowledge of Jyutping (a romanization writing system which provides explicit Cantonese tone markers), linguistic-processing demand and tone type on the ear preference pattern of native tone processing in Hong Kong Cantonese speakers. While participants with little knowledge of Jyutping showed a previously reported left-ear advantage (LEA), those with a good level of Jyutping expertise exhibited either a right-ear advantage or bilateral processing during lexical tone identification and contour tone discrimination, respectively. As for the effect of linguistic-processing demand, while an LEA was found in acoustic/phonetic perception situations, this advantage disappeared and was replaced by a bilateral pattern in conditions that involved a greater extent of linguistic processing, suggesting an increased involvement of the left hemisphere. Regarding the effect of tone type, both groups showed an LEA in level tone discrimination, but only the Jyutping group demonstrated a bilateral pattern in contour tone discrimination. Overall, knowledge of written codes of tones, greater degree of linguistic processing and contour tone processing seem to influence the brain lateralization of lexical tone processing in native listeners of Cantonese by increasing the recruitment of the left-hemisphere language network.

Moraic tone-bearing units in Kabiye

This article provides evidence that the mora, rather than the syllable, is the tone-bearing unit in Kabiye, an Eastern Gurunsi Gur language of Togo. After presenting the phoneme inventory and a brief overview of the tone system, the concept of phonological weight is introduced in order to precisely characterise the mora and the syllable in this language, as well as the relationship between them. Two observations provide evidence in favour of the mora as the tone-bearing unit: first, contour tones are licenced on heavy syllables but not on light ones; second, tonal processes are sensitive to a unit smaller than the syllable, such that the second constituent of a heavy syllable operates with a degree of independence relative to the first. These observations are explored in four phonological domains: association of the LHL tone pattern, association of two-tone patterns, L tone spreading, and vocalic elision. Two post-lexical processes — contour realignment and HLH plateauing — provide putative evidence of the syllable as tone-bearing unit, but even in these cases, a moraic account is ultimately judged to be preferable.

The roles of pitch type and lexicality in the hemispheric lateralization for lexical tone processing: An ERP study

Previous studies proposed different views to explain the hemispheric lateralization of lexical tone processing. But how the acoustic and phonological information modulates it remains unclear. The acoustic information refers to the physical acoustic features of lexical tones, and the phonological information means the different word meanings differentiated by lexical tones. In the present study, we adopted the active oddball paradigm to explore the effects of pitch type and lexicality on native Cantonese speakers' lexical tone processing with the event-related potential (ERP) technique. We used Cantonese level and contour tones (pitch type) to examine the role of acoustic information and real words and pseudowords (lexicality) to detect the phonological information's effect. The results showed that the pitch type and lexicality affected the N2b amplitudes between the left and right hemispheres interactively, while they did not play roles in P3b amplitudes. The results indicated that the acoustic and phonological information modulated the hemispheric lateralization of lexical tone processing interactively only in the early stage (N2b time window) but not in the later stage (P3b time window). The findings suggested a two-stage model interprets the hemispheric lateralization in lexical tone processing.

On the learnability of level-based and unit-based tonal OCP generalizations: An artificial grammar learning study

In previous research of tonal phonology, contour tones were assumed to be phonologically presented not only as a sequence of level tones but also as a single unit. Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP) constraints, by extension, were thought to prohibit identical level tones associated to adjacent terminal nodes (OCP-Terminal) and identical adjacent tonal units (OCP-Unit). This proposal has nevertheless been challenged theoretically and empirically. This study seeks to offer new experimental evidence to help solve the debate by comparing the learnability of the two OCP generalizations in an artificial grammar learning paradigm. In Exp I, we exposed disyllabic tonal patterns conforming either to OCP-Terminal or to OCP-Unit to two target groups of learners, who were then tested if they could extend the hidden generalization to their auditory acceptability judgment of novel disyllabic items. Exp II had the same exposure phase but required learners to produce novel disyllabic items with tonal combinations of their choice. In both experiments, the two target groups demonstrated signs of learning target OCP generalizations from different channels. Crucially, learners implicitly acquired the OCP-Terminal generalization but only learned the OCP-Unit pattern as explicit knowledge. These findings led us to conclude that OCP-Unit may not be involved in implicit and automatized phonological computation.

Effect of the Use of a Cream with Leucine and Lactic Acid Associated with Electrostimulation in Contouring and Facial Tonus: A Randomized Clinical Controlled Trial

Evidence has supported the use of leucine as a promising agent for the maintenance of muscle tone. This study aimed to assess the combined effect of leucine and cream-based lactic acid (novel cosmetic product), associated with the use of surface electrical stimulation to improve contour and facial tonus in women. A total of 23 women were randomly allocated into two groups: Experimental (EG)—use of the leucine-based cream and lactic acid + electrostimulation for facial toning (mean intensity 13 Hz and protocol in progression); and placebo (GP)—use of the placebo cream (without the addition of leucine and lactic acid) + stimulation with the same protocol as the EG. Each group used their cream daily and underwent the intervention protocol three x/week with stimulation for 40 min, for a total of 8 weeks. Three main outcomes were reported: angular variation of facial contour by means of photogrammetry, muscle tone through the electromyographic activity of the masseter and zygomatic muscles during rest and functional tasks of biting and smiling. A significant effect of the intervention and between the groups was obtained for the experimental group against the placebo group for facial contour and muscle tone. An increased muscular activity of the masseter (average 28%) when smiling, and a reduction of zygomatic activity (in average 41%) when biting were found. The use of cream containing leucine and lactic acid combined with electrostimulation contributes to the improvement of facial contour and muscle tone when biting and smiling.

The effects of perceptual training on speech production of Mandarin sandhi tones by tonal and non-tonal speakers

This study examined the effects of perceptual training on the acquisition of sandhi tones by both tonal (Cantonese) and non-tonal (English) speakers. In the pre- and post-training tasks, participants were presented with two monosyllables in each trial and were asked to produce them as disyllables. During perceptual training, they heard trials of disyllabic words with and without sandhi rule applications and were trained to identify the two types of disyllabic words. Based on functional data analyses, Cantonese speakers improved in building up more detailed and native-like allotone representations and in turn exhibited more native-like speech production in many cases. However, American learners showed improvement mainly in the offset f0 values or the turning point, indicating that they might have failed to pay attention to the shape of the entire tonal contour during perceptual training. For tonal speakers, the improvement of allotone production occurred on both real and wug words, indicating that the perceptual training may lead to more accurate production of tone sandhi rules regardless of syllable types. American learners, however, might need more training to further modify the allotone representation to perform more accurate sandhi tone application, especially in wug words. Finally, phonetic bias did not correctly predict the success of allotone acquisition since other factors such as the acoustic cues used in processing allotones during perceptual training might have affected the learning results.

Computer-aided feedback on the pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese tones: using Praat to promote multimedia foreign language learning

This article discusses whether digital visual and audio feedback in learners’ own voices improves their perception and production of lexical tones in Chinese as a foreign language. Forty-four beginners participated in a four-week training focused on the pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese tones at the word level. Half received digital feedback generated by Praat, a phonetic research software, to visualize the contours of their tones while hearing corrected tones in their voices. The other half participants received visual and audio feedback given by the researcher. While both groups enhanced their tone perception and production skills during the training, the Praat-aided group made significantly larger progress than the control group. Post-training survey revealed participants’ preference for the imitation of corrected tones in their voices and the direct visual comparison between their tone contours and those of corrected tones. The findings corroborate the importance of computer-assisted multimedia learning in foreign language pedagogy, which also has implications for employing research-oriented technologies and automated tonal feedback in the instruction of Chinese as a foreign language.

Distinct but integrated processing of lexical tones, vowels, and consonants in tonal language speech perception: Evidence from mismatch negativity

The processing of lexical tones, vowels, and consonants is significant in tonal language speech perception. However, it remains unclear whether their processing is similar or distinct concerning the extent and time course and whether their processing is independent or integrated. Thus in the present study, we conducted two event-related potential (ERP) experiments to explore how native speakers of Cantonese process lexical tones (including level and contour tones), vowels, and consonants in real vs. pseudo-Cantonese words with mismatch negativity (MMN). The MMN amplitudes and latencies showed that lexical tones and vowels were processed similarly in extent and time course. Lexical tones and consonants were processed differently in extent and time course. Vowels and consonants were processed to similar extents but over different time courses. Lexicality (real words vs. pseudowords) and tonal type (level vs. contour tones) modulated the differences in the extent and time courses of processing between lexical tones/vowels and consonants. The MMN additivity analyses further suggested that the processing of lexical tones and vowels, lexical tones and consonants, and vowels and consonants were integrated regardless of lexicality and tonal type. The results revealed that distinct but integrated processing occurs for lexical tones, vowels, and consonants in the speech perception of tonal languages. The findings provided neurophysiological evidence for the mechanism underlying tonal language spoken word recognition. • Lexical tones and vowels are processed similarly in terms of extent and time course. • Lexical tones and consonants are processed differently in terms of extent and time course. • Vowels and consonants are processed to similar extents but over different time courses. • Lexical tones and vowels, lexical tones and consonants, and vowels and consonants are processed integrally. • Lexicality and tonal type modulate the differences between lexical tones/vowels and consonants processing.

Elucidating the influences of embodiment and conceptual metaphor on lexical and non-speech tone learning

In the contexts of language learning and music processing, hand gestures conveying acoustic information visually influence perception of speech and non-speech sounds (Connell et al., 2013; Morett & Chang, 2015). Currently, it is unclear whether this effect is due to these gestures' use of the human body to highlight relevant features of language (embodiment) or the cross-modal mapping between the visual motion trajectories of these gestures and corresponding auditory features (conceptual metaphor). To address this question, we examined identification of the pitch contours of lexical tones and non-speech analogs learned with pitch gesture, comparable dot motion, or no motion. Critically, pitch gesture and dot motion were either congruent or incongruent with the vertical conceptual metaphor of pitch. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found that identification accuracy increased for tones learned with congruent pitch gesture and dot motion, whereas it remained stable or decreased for tones learned with incongruent pitch gesture and dot motion. These findings provide the first evidence that both embodied and non-embodied visual stimuli congruent with the vertical conceptual metaphor of pitch enhance lexical and non-speech tone learning. Thus, they illuminate the influences of conceptual metaphor and embodiment on lexical and non-speech auditory perception, providing insight into how they can be leveraged to enhance language learning and music processing.

On five-level tone contrasts: the case of Dan-Gblewo

The central goal of this research is to propose that no language utilizes more than four level pitches contrastively (from low to high). The central question is whether a five- or six-way contrast represents five or six level tones, or a combination of level tones, contour tones, voice quality, and syllable type. We argue that Dan-Gblewo operates a four-level-plus-creaky-voice system rather than a five-level tone system. We show that Dan must be analysed as such from the empirical, experimental, and theoretical perspectives.

Euskal doinueren ulermena: Markinako galderak eta baieztapenak

The goal of this paper is to investigate the effects of intonational differences across Basque varieties. We have chosen three Markina Basque contours as stimuli in a perception experiment: those that are used in declaratives, yes-no questions and verum focus sentences. Stimuli include both natural and manipulated contours. Three participant groups (with Markina Basque, another Basque variety or Spanish as L1) classified stimuli as questions or statements. The results show that Markina Basque speakers differ from the other two groups in the interpretation of the contours. Markina speakers attend mostly to the tonal contour of the last syllable to identify questions.

A preliminary study on nasalization and phonation

Abstract Although it is widely acknowledged that different speech processes may interact with each other, the way that nasalization affects phonation remains poorly understood. This paper explores the relationship between nasalization and phonation, by analyzing the phonetic cues of the tense/lax distinction both in nasalization and non-nasalization in the Bai language. The data for discussion is from two Bai dialects, Chengbei and Jinhua, which have a tense/lax distinction in both nasalized and non-nasalized syllables. Three phonation parameters – fundamental frequency (F0), open quotient (OQ), and speed quotient (SQ) – are extracted from EGG signals for analysis. It is found that the influence of nasalization on phonation varies with the tone contours. As for the level tones, the role of phonation manner in tone distinction is not evident in nasalization in that tense tones can be distinguished from lax tones only by pitch. However, in non-nasalization, phonation manner plays an indispensable role in tone distinction, in that the contrast between tense and lax tones are reflected not only on F0 but also on OQ and SQ. Moreover, non-nasalized tense tones are more likely to be accompanied by non-modal phonation that is characterized by a significantly higher SQ. In terms of articulatory explanation, high SQ in non-modal phonation is the result of the vibration of tightened vocal folds, and the tension of vocal folds is caused by raising the soft palate in non-nasalization. As for the falling tones, the role of phonation manner in tone distinction is more salient in nasalization than in non-nasalization in Chengbei Bai, but it is not attested in Jinhua Bai. This study shows that the interaction between nasalization and phonation in Bai can be revealed in the analysis of phonation parameters, i.e. F0, OQ, and SQ.

The contrast between clear and plain speaking style for Mandarin tones.

We examine the acoustic characteristics of clear and plain conversational productions of Mandarin tones. Twenty-one native Mandarin speakers were asked to produce a selection of Mandarin words in both plain and clear speaking styles. Several tokens were gathered for each of the four tones giving a total of 2045 productions. Six critical tonal cues were computed for each production: fundamental frequency (F0) mean, slope, and second derivative, duration, mean intensity, and a binary variable coding whether the production involved creaky voice. A linear mixed-effects regression model was used to explore how these cues changed with respect to the clear versus plain distinction for each tone, with speaking style as the fixed effect and speaker being a random effect. The strongest effects detected were that duration and mean intensity increased in clear speech across speakers and tones. Tones 2 and 3 increased in mean F0 and Tone 4 increased its slope. An additional finding was that, for contour tones, speakers accomplished the increase in duration by stretching out the tone contours in time while largely not changing the F0 range. These results are discussed in terms of signal-based (affecting all tones) and code-based (enhancing contrast between tones) change.

Ciri-ciri akustik tuturan gagap: Kajian fonetik akustik

This study aims to formulate the acoustic characteristics of stuttering speech through the acoustic phonetic approach. The parameters used to determine the acoustic characteristics of stuttering speech are the duration of speech and silence, the speech tone contours, and the intensity contours of the speech. The data used in this research is a documentary data taken from the website www.youtube.com. The research data is in the form of stuttering speech with phonetic transcription [bəbəbəp bəbəp bəbəbəp bəlaki]. The data were analyzed using Praat 1.6.26 software. The results show that the analyzed stuttering speech has some acoustic characteristics as follows: (1) it has a different duration per sound segment and tends to increase in the last sound segment which is influenced by the length of the lexical strands and the slow movement of the speakers articulator; (2) it has silences with varying duration between one sound segment and another, which indicates that a stuttering speech is spoken haltingly and often stops suddenly; (3) it has a fairly flat tone contour in the first, second, and third segments, and has a significant increase in tone contour in the last sound segment; and (4) it is spoken louder in the last sound segment compared to the previous sound segment which is characterized by a high increase in sound intensity in the last sound segment.