scholarly journals The Diversity of Tone Languages and the Roles of Pitch Variation in Non-tone Languages: Considerations for Tone Perception Research

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine T. Best
Keyword(s):  
Tone Perception ◽  
Tone Languages

scholarly journals The Limits of Perception in the Tonal Orthographies of three-tone Systems

2017 ◽  
Vol 84 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kolawole Adeniyi
Keyword(s):  
Tone Perception ◽  
Tone Languages ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Low Tone

This article discusses the representation of downstep in the tonal orthographies of some three-tone languages of West Benue-Congo, in the light of the phonological properties of tone in the languages. Ebira has total downstep, which makes both downstepped high and down-stepped mid to be perceived at a level close to outright low tone, and written so; downstepped high in Igala is realised around the level of the mid tone and is often written as mid in the or-thography. In Gwari, the docking of floating high tonal morpheme and contour simplification interact with downstep in such a way that downstepped high tones are frequently written as mid. It is shown that these situations arise because surface tone perception is taken as the sole parameter for tone categorisation, ignoring the underlying tones of lexical items in the lan-guages as well as the number of tones and possible terracing-triggered intersections between the tones. It is argued that the orthographies of the languages will be far more accurate if these obvious facts of downstep are incorporated.

On the Relationship Between General Auditory Sensitivity and Speech Perception: An Examination of Pitch and Lexical Tone Perception in 4- to 6-Year-Old Children

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 487-498
Author(s):  
Puisan Wong ◽  
Man Wai Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Developmental Trajectory ◽  
Auditory Sensitivity ◽  
Pitch Discrimination ◽  
Lexical Tone ◽  
Perceptual Training ◽  
Lexical Tones ◽  
Tone Perception ◽  
Tone Discrimination

Purpose Theoretical models and substantial research have proposed that general auditory sensitivity is a developmental foundation for speech perception and language acquisition. Nonetheless, controversies exist about the effectiveness of general auditory training in improving speech and language skills. This research investigated the relationships among general auditory sensitivity, phonemic speech perception, and word-level speech perception via the examination of pitch and lexical tone perception in children. Method Forty-eight typically developing 4- to 6-year-old Cantonese-speaking children were tested on the discrimination of the pitch patterns of lexical tones in synthetic stimuli, discrimination of naturally produced lexical tones, and identification of lexical tone in familiar words. Results The findings revealed that accurate lexical tone discrimination and identification did not necessarily entail the accurate discrimination of nonlinguistic stimuli that followed the pitch levels and pitch shapes of lexical tones. Although pitch discrimination and tone discrimination abilities were strongly correlated, accuracy in pitch discrimination was lower than that in tone discrimination, and nonspeech pitch discrimination ability did not precede linguistic tone discrimination in the developmental trajectory. Conclusions Contradicting the theoretical models, the findings of this study suggest that general auditory sensitivity and speech perception may not be causally or hierarchically related. The finding that accuracy in pitch discrimination is lower than that in tone discrimination suggests that comparable nonlinguistic auditory perceptual ability may not be necessary for accurate speech perception and language learning. The results cast doubt on the use of nonlinguistic auditory perceptual training to improve children's speech, language, and literacy abilities.

Tone perception in Mandarin

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siyun Liu ◽  
Arthur G. Samuel
Keyword(s):  
Tone Perception

Weighting Pitch Contour and Loudness Contour in Mandarin Tone Perception in Cochlear Implant Listeners

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qinglin Meng ◽  
Nengheng Zheng ◽  
Ambika Prasad Mishra ◽  
Jacinta Dan Luo ◽  
Jan W. H. Schnupp
Keyword(s):  
Cochlear Implant ◽  
Pitch Contour ◽  
Tone Perception ◽  
Mandarin Tone

Effect of Noise on Lexical Tone Perception in Cantonese-Speaking Amusics

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Shao ◽  
Caicai Zhang ◽  
Gang Peng ◽  
Yike Yang ◽  
William S.-Y. Wang
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Tone ◽  
Tone Perception

Intonation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura J. Downing ◽  
Al Mtenje
Keyword(s):  
African Languages ◽  
Tone Languages ◽  
Questions And Answers ◽  
Question Intonation

Intonation in African languages remains an especially understudied topic of investigation. Chichewa is, then, rather exceptional, as there exist both purely impressionistic studies of intonation for the language, such as Kanerva (1990), as well as more phonetically informed studies, such as Carleton (1996), Myers (1996, 1999a, b), Downing (2011a, 2017), and Downing et al. (2004). Based on this work as well as our own investigations, the first three sections of the chapter provide an overview of intonation in three basic constructions: declarative sentences (both simple and complex), content questions and answers, and polar questions. Emphasis prosody (as opposed to focus prosody) is also discussed. Intonational phenomena covered include: downstep, final lowering, continuation rise, emphasis raising, suspension of downstep, and polar question intonation. The implications of Chichewa intonation for the typology of intonation in tone languages is discussed in the concluding section of the chapter.

scholarly journals Statistical Speech Segmentation in Tone Languages: The Role of Lexical Tones

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Gómez ◽  
Peggy Mok ◽  
Mikhail Ordin ◽  
Jacques Mehler ◽  
Marina Nespor
Keyword(s):  
Speech Processing ◽  
Additional Data ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Speech Segmentation ◽  
Lexical Tones ◽  
Tone Languages ◽  
Transitional Probabilities ◽  
Lexical Processes

Research has demonstrated distinct roles for consonants and vowels in speech processing. For example, consonants have been shown to support lexical processes, such as the segmentation of speech based on transitional probabilities (TPs), more effectively than vowels. Theory and data so far, however, have considered only non-tone languages, that is to say, languages that lack contrastive lexical tones. In the present work, we provide a first investigation of the role of consonants and vowels in statistical speech segmentation by native speakers of Cantonese, as well as assessing how tones modulate the processing of vowels. Results show that Cantonese speakers are unable to use statistical cues carried by consonants for segmentation, but they can use cues carried by vowels. This difference becomes more evident when considering tone-bearing vowels. Additional data from speakers of Russian and Mandarin suggest that the ability of Cantonese speakers to segment streams with statistical cues carried by tone-bearing vowels extends to other tone languages, but is much reduced in speakers of non-tone languages.

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