Mandarin Primer

Chao, Yuen Ren

doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674732889

Cited by 186 publications

(27 citation statements)

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“…Mandarin is usually described as having four tones (high level, rising, falling-rising, and falling; Chao, 1948), whereas Cantonese is typically considered to have three contour tones in addition to the three level tones already mentioned: low falling, low rising, and high rising (Matthews & Yip, 1994). Measurement of the natural utterances on which the present stimuli are based, as well as fundamental frequency measures by Bauer and Benedict (1997) and graphs displayed by Gandour (1983), suggested that the relationship between the Cantonese high-level and high-rising tones is qualitativelysimilar to that between the Mandarin high-level and rising tones, as used by Wang (1976).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the (non)categorical perception of lexical tones

Francis

Ciocca

2003

Perception & Psychophysics

133

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Identification and discrimination of lexical tones in Cantonese were compared in the context of a traditional categoricalperception paradigm. Three lexical tone continua were used: one ranging from low level to high level, one from high rising to high level, and one from low falling to high rising. Identification data showed steep slopes at category boundaries, suggesting that lexical tones are perceived categorically. In contrast, discrimination curves generally showed much weaker evidence for categorical perception. Subsequent investigation showed that the presence of a tonal context played a strong role in the identification of target tones and less of a role in discrimination. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that tonal category boundaries are determined by a combination of regions of natural auditory sensitivity and the influence of linguistic experience.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the (non)categorical perception of lexical tones

Francis

Ciocca

2003

Perception & Psychophysics

133

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“…The tones of Mandarin as spoken in mainland China, as well as those of other Chinese languages, have been described by many investigators (e.g., Chao, 1948Chao, , 1968Ho, 1976;Howie, 1974Howie, , 1976Kratochvil, 1968Kratochvil, , 1985Kratochvil, , 1998. However, certain points need clarification.…”

Section: The Acoustics Of Mandarin Chinese Tonesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification and discrimination of Mandarin Chinese tones by Mandarin Chinese vs. French listeners

Hallé

Chang

Best

2004

Journal of Phonetics

275

260

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Previous work has not yielded clear conclusions about the categorical nature of perception of tone contrasts by native listeners of tone languages. We reopen this issue in a cross-linguistic study comparing Taiwan Mandarin and French listeners. We tested these listeners on three tone continua derived from natural Mandarin utterances within carrier sentences, created via a state-of-the-art pitch-scaling technique in which within-continuum interpolation was applied to both f 0 and intensity contours. Classic assessments of categorization and discrimination of each tone continuum were conducted with both groups of listeners. In Experiment 1, Taiwanese listeners identified the tone of target syllables within carrier sentence context and discriminated tones of single syllables. In Experiment 2, both French and Taiwanese listeners completed an AXB identification task on single syllables. Finally, French listeners were run on an AXB discrimination task in Experiment 3. Results indicated that Taiwanese listeners' perception of tones is quasi-categorical whereas French listeners' is psychophysically based. French listeners nevertheless show substantial sensitivity to tone contour differences, though to a lesser extent than Taiwanese listeners. Thus, the findings suggest that despite the lack of lexical tone contrasts in the French language, French listeners are not absolutely ''deaf'' to tonal variations. They simply fail to perceive tones along the lines of a welldefined and finite set of linguistic categories. r

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“…The fourth tone, high falling, ', starts near the top of the range and falls toward the bottom. This traditional under standing of Mandarin tones, as seen in Chao (1948), is confirmed by acoustic measurings carried out by Brotzman (1964) and Dreher and Lee (1966).…”

mentioning

confidence: 64%

English Stresses and Chinese Tones in Chinese Sentences

Cheng¹

1968

Phonetica

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Mandarin Primer

Cited by 186 publications

References 0 publications

On the (non)categorical perception of lexical tones

On the (non)categorical perception of lexical tones

Identification and discrimination of Mandarin Chinese tones by Mandarin Chinese vs. French listeners

English Stresses and Chinese Tones in Chinese Sentences

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