Phonetic observations on tone and stress in Mandarin Chinese

Moore, Corinne B.

doi:10.1121/1.406480

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…In Mandarin, which is also considered a syllable-timed language (Goswami et al, 2010 ), the importance of tonal variation for its lexical system is well established (Leather, 1983 ; Moore, 1993 ; Shen, 1993 ; Lai and Sereno, 2007 ). Thus, we expect Mandarin L2 learners of English to perform better in detecting melodic variation than their L2 learner peers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Enhanced Musical Rhythmic Perception in Second Language Learners

Roncaglia-Denissen

Roor

Chen

et al. 2016

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Previous research suggests that mastering languages with distinct rather than similar rhythmic properties enhances musical rhythmic perception. This study investigates whether learning a second language (L2) contributes to enhanced musical rhythmic perception in general, regardless of first and second languages rhythmic properties. Additionally, we investigated whether this perceptual enhancement could be alternatively explained by exposure to musical rhythmic complexity, such as the use of compound meter in Turkish music. Finally, it investigates if an enhancement of musical rhythmic perception could be observed among L2 learners whose first language relies heavily on pitch information, as is the case with tonal languages. Therefore, we tested Turkish, Dutch and Mandarin L2 learners of English and Turkish monolinguals on their musical rhythmic perception. Participants’ phonological and working memory capacities, melodic aptitude, years of formal musical training and daily exposure to music were assessed to account for cultural and individual differences which could impact their rhythmic ability. Our results suggest that mastering a L2 rather than exposure to musical rhythmic complexity could explain individuals’ enhanced musical rhythmic perception. An even stronger enhancement of musical rhythmic perception was observed for L2 learners whose first and second languages differ regarding their rhythmic properties, as enhanced performance of Turkish in comparison with Dutch L2 learners of English seem to suggest. Such a stronger enhancement of rhythmic perception seems to be found even among L2 learners whose first language relies heavily on pitch information, as the performance of Mandarin L2 learners of English indicates. Our findings provide further support for a cognitive transfer between the language and music domain.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…That is, while the initial syllable carries a canonical lexical tone, a non-initial syllable carries a neutral tone, perceptually weaker in comparison to the canonical tone. The remaining non-neutral tone words cannot be categorized as either trochaic or iambic (Chao, 1968 ; Moore, 1993 ; Zhang et al, 2008 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Enhanced Musical Rhythmic Perception in Second Language Learners

Roncaglia-Denissen

Roor

Chen

et al. 2016

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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“…It is for just this reason that in-depth phonetic investigation has proven essential in disentangling tone-related and stress/accent-related cues from one another in research on tone languages. For example, careful phonetic analysis of Mandarin Chinese, a language with four lexical tones, has yielded evidence for stress feet for which head-dependent relations are cued through a combination of F0 range and duration (Moore, 1993), as well as tonotactic effects (Duanmu, 1990; Yip, 1980). Presence of contrastive/corrective focus have also been shown to influence both duration and F0 of focused constituents in Mandarin (Chen, 2006; Greif, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncovering Tonal and Temporal Correlates of Phrasal Prominence in Medʉmba

Franich

2019

Lang Speech

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Characterizing prosodic prominence relations in African tone languages is notoriously difficult, as typical acoustic cues to prominence (changes in F0, increases in intensity, etc.) can be difficult to distinguish from those which mark tonal contrasts. The task of establishing prominence is further complicated by the fact that tone, an important cue to syllable prominence and prosodic boundaries cross-linguistically, plays many roles in African languages: tones often signal lexical contrasts, can themselves be morphemes, and can also interact in key ways with prosody. The present study builds on phonological generalizations about tonal patterns in Medʉmba, a Grassfields Bantu language, and uses the speech cycling paradigm to investigate relative timing of syllables varying in phrase-level prominence. Specifically, we investigate timing asymmetries between syllables hypothesized to occur at the edge of a phonological phrase, which carry a high phrase accent, and those in phrase-medial position, which do not. Results indicate significant differences in the temporal alignment of accented versus non-accented syllables, with accented syllables occurring significantly closer to positions established as prominence-attracting in previous speech cycling research. We show that these findings cannot be attributed to differences in tone alone. Findings demonstrate the importance of relative temporal alignment as a correlate of prosodic prominence. Findings also point to increased duration as a phonetic property which distinguishes between syllables bearing phrasal prominence from those which do not.

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“…Metrically, syllables with lexical tones are stressed (at least to some extent), whereas syllables with the neutral tone are always unstressed. Phonetically, syllables with the neutral tone usually show signs of weakening and lenition (e.g., [22]), such as reduced vowels, shorter duration, lower pitch, and possibly creaky voice. Further, it has been shown cross-linguistically that unstressed syllables are often produced with creaky voice [17,18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creaky Voice as a Function of Tonal Categories and Prosodic Boundaries

Kuang¹

2017

Interspeech 2017

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This study looks into the distribution of creaky voice in Mandarin in continuous speech. A creaky voice detector was used to automatically detect the appearance of creaky voice in a large-scale Mandarin corpus (Sinica COSPRO corpus). As the prosodic information has been annotated in the corpus, we were able to look at the distribution of creaky voice as a function of the interaction between tone and prosodic structures. As expected, among the five tonal categories (four lexical tones and one neutral tone), creaky voice is most likely to occur with Tone 3 and the neutral tone, followed by Tone 2 and Tone 4. Prosodic boundaries also play important roles, as the likelihood of creak increases when the prosodic boundaries are larger, regardless of the tonal categories. It is also confirmed that the pitch range for the occurrence of creaky voice is 110 Hz for male speakers and 170 Hz for female speakers, consistent with previous small-scale studies. Finally, male speakers have a higher overall rate of creaky voice than female speakers. Altogether, this study validates the hypotheses from previous studies, and provides a better understanding of voice-source variation in different prosodic conditions.

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Phonetic observations on tone and stress in Mandarin Chinese

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

The Enhanced Musical Rhythmic Perception in Second Language Learners

The Enhanced Musical Rhythmic Perception in Second Language Learners

Uncovering Tonal and Temporal Correlates of Phrasal Prominence in Medʉmba

Creaky Voice as a Function of Tonal Categories and Prosodic Boundaries

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