Processing Mandarin Tone 3 Sandhi at the Morphosyntactic Interface: Reduplication and Lexical Compounds

Mandarin tone 3 sandhi is a phonological alternation in which the initial tone 3 (i.e., low tone) syllable changes to a tone 2 (i.e., rising tone) when followed by another tone 3. The present study used a cross-modal syllable-morpheme matching experiment to examine how native speakers process the sandhi sequences derived from verb reduplication and compounding, respectively. Embedded in a visually-presented sentential context, a disyllabic sequence containing a sandhi target was displayed simultaneously with a monosyllabic audio, either a tone 1 (i.e., high-level tone), tone 2 (i.e., rising tone) or tone 3 (i.e., low tone), and participants judged whether the audio syllable matched the visual morpheme. Results showed that the tone 3 sandhi was processed differently in the two constructions. The underlying tone and the surface tone were co-activated and competed with each other in sandhi compounds whereas predominant activation of the underlying tone, over the surface tone, was observed in reduplication. The processing of tone 3 sandhi offers support for distinctive morphological structures: a lexical compound is represented both as a whole-word unit and as a combination of two individual morphemes whereas a verb reduplication is represented and accessed as a monomorphemic unit in the mental lexicon.

Learning Mandarin tones through pitch-time diagrams: A computer-assisted visual approach

A notable feature of spoken Mandarin by many non-tonal language learners of Mandarin is incorrect or inaccurate tones. This contributes to significant impediments to effective communication by creating confusion, due to the fact that tones in Mandarin serve a lexical purpose. The problem is exacerbated by the relatively small number of Mandarin syllables. Traditionally, tones are taught by the classical aural process of “listen and repeat” in the classroom with the help of a language instructor and supplemented by out-of-classroom practice using model audio recordings. Both modes require learners to aurally detect the differences between tones and to imitate what they hear. With the wide availability of personal computers, computer-aided tone acquisition is an alternative to the “listen and repeat” method. The aim is to display and correlate the phonetic counterpart of tones, namely their pitch-time diagrams (also known as Fo diagrams). This provides visual feedback to guide learners to produce the correct tones through imitation of the correct pitch-time diagrams. While the pitch range of the Mandarin tones is well defined by Chao’s 5-level tone value scale for the four full tones, their corresponding pitch-time diagrams are not exactly the same as Chao’s tone diagrams. With disyllabic and trisyllabic Mandarin words, the pitch-time diagrams of the constituent syllables deviates even more from their tone diagram counterparts due to various coarticulation effects. This paper reports on a quantitative study of the tone values of single syllable, disyllabic and trisyllabic Mandarin words extracted from their pitch-time diagrams. The understanding of the results based on previous phonological studies is also provided. The results point to the effectiveness of pitch-time diagrams as a visual feedback tool for tone acquisition.

The Selectivity of Musical Advantage

The OPERA hypothesis theorizes how musical experience heightens perceptual acuity to lexical tones. One missing element in the hypothesis is whether musical advantage is general to all or specific to some lexical tones. To further extend the hypothesis, this study investigated whether English musicians consistently outperformed English nonmusicians in perceiving a variety of Cantonese tones. In an AXB discrimination task, the musicians exhibited superior discriminatory performance over the nonmusicians only in the high level, high rising, and mid-level tone contexts. Similarly, in a Cantonese tone sequence recall task, the musicians significantly outperformed the nonmusicians only in the contour tone context but not in the level tone context. Collectively, the results reflect the selectivity of musical advantage—musical experience is only advantageous to the perception of some but not all Cantonese tones, and elements of selectivity can be introduced to the OPERA hypothesis. Methodologically, the findings highlight the need to include a wide variety of lexical tone contrasts when studying music-to-language transfer.

AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS' DIFFICULTIES IN USING ENGLISH INTONATION AT GRADE EIGHT OF SMP NEGERI 2 PEMATANGSIANTAR

This research is about the students’ difficulties in using English intonation. Since English is a foreign language, students always face problems especially in pronouncing the words. Pronouncing also refers to the intonation in conversation. Problem stated in this research as follow: What are the students’ difficulties in using English intonation? It focuses on the students’ intonation in a conversation, which consists of rising tone, falling tone and level tone. To answer the problem above, this research follows some theories, namely: Allen (1954), Hay craft (1971), Jones (1979), and Roach (2000). The research design is qualitative research. The subjects of this study are the second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Pematangsiantar, and the object is the student’s intonation. The technique of collecting data follows audio method or what is called recorded voice data. The data is analyzed by drawing the terminal contour of students’ intonation. The result of this research was there are three difficulties of students in using English intonation, namely: (1). Difficulty in using level tone, (2). Difficulty in using rising intonation (3). Difficulty in using falling intonation. This research finding recommends both teacher and students to take responsibility in overcoming those difficulties. An English teacher should teach his beginner students the using of intonation and its function in every kinds of sentence. Since there is an imitation process in learning intonation, a teacher should be able to detect a falling intonation from a rising intonation in his own voice as well as in a student’s. The success of learning does not only depend on the teacher but also involves the students’ awareness to learn English.

An exploratory descriptive study of accent shift in Northern East Cree

Northern East Cree has several /+h/ morphemes, which, when suffixed onto a word, add meanings such as inanimate plurality or animate obviation. Literature on these morphemes has yet to describe the impressionistic accent shift that accompanies /+h/ suffixation onto a word. In this article findings are presented from an exploratory descriptive study in which citation forms with and without the /+h/ morphemes are compared, examining how accent shift is acoustically realized, as well as the relevance of pitch slope and modal voicing. The results do not align with previous analyses of the /+h/ morphemes’ properties. Rather, it is possible that words without /+h/ have a falling tone pattern, whereas words with /+h/ have a level tone pattern, suggesting that pitch slope, in combination with modal voice, may be the best diagnostic of the presence of /+h/ morphemes.

The interaction between tone and prosodic focus in Mandarin Chinese

This study characterized focused tones in Mandarin Chinese through a production experiment using phone number strings. The results revealed that, although phonation cues had little effect on any focused tone, prosodic cues exhibited various patterns of distribution. Duration played an important role for each focused tone, but intensity had a relatively less salient role. Among pitch-related parameters, the raising of pitch register was an important cue when a level tone (tone 1) was focused. By contrast, due to the interaction between tone and intonation, absolute slope and pitch range had less effect on tone 1 focus. These cues, however, were prominent when contour tones (tones 2 and 4) were in focus. Unlike other focused tones that raised pitch, tone 3 focus exhibited the opposite pattern, lowering its pitch target. In the aggregation of all focused tones, it was found that only primarily pitch-related parameters were selected as the main variables discriminating one from another. The results of this study, therefore, suggest that the prosodic marking of focus is not uniform, even within a single language, but clearly differs by tone type. Accordingly, prosodic marking of focus should be considered multimodal in a tonal language.

Can Auditors Pursue Firm-Level Goals Nonconsciously on Audits of Complex Estimates? An Examination of the Joint Effects of Tone at the Top and Management's Specialist

ABSTRACT We examine whether tone at the top emphasizing firm-level commercial, audit quality, or both goals (balanced) can nonconsciously affect auditors' engagement-level tendency to accept management's estimates, and whether the effects differ if management engages a specialist. This study is motivated by academics' and regulators' increasing attention on firm-level tone at the top and concerns about management bias in audited estimates, especially when the evidence is prepared by management's specialist. We find firm-level goals can be pursued nonconsciously by auditors when performing a complex task. When management's specialist is absent, a balanced approach reduces auditors' tendency to agree with management's estimate compared to a commercial approach; however, it is less effective when management's specialist is present. We find an audit quality approach reduces auditors' tendency to accept management's estimate compared to a commercial approach, regardless of the absence/presence of a specialist. Our results have important implications for regulators and audit firms. Data Availability: Data are available from the authors upon request.

WHY ARE LEXICAL TONES DIFFICULT TO LEARN?

L2 sounds present different kinds of challenges to learners at the phonetic, phonological, and lexical levels, but previous studies on L2 tone learning mostly focused on the phonetic and lexical levels. The present study employs an innovative technique to examine the role of prior tonal experience and musical training on forming novel abstract syllable-level tone categories. Eighty Cantonese and English musicians and nonmusicians completed two tasks: (a) AX tone discrimination and (b) incidental learning of artificial tone-segment connections (e.g., words beginning with an aspirated stop always carry a rising tone) with synthesized stimuli modeled on Thai. Although the four participant groups distinguished the target tones similarly well, Cantonese speakers showed abstract and implicit knowledge of the target tone-segment mappings after training but English speakers did not, regardless of their musical experience. This suggests that tone language experience, but not musical experience, is crucial for forming novel abstract syllable-level tone categories.

Tones of Last Official Speech as First Lady by Michelle Obama

This article is an analysis of the last speech script of Michelle Obama as the first lady. This study aims to find out what the tone contained in Michelle Obama's speech, to know the type of tone that is often used by Michelle Obama in her speech, and to investigate the meaning of the tone used. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative and document as the source of the data. In collecting the data, first, the writers searched for a video of Michelle Obama's speech on the internet, then wrote the speech so that it became a transcript of the speech, after that, the writers did an analysis document by looking for the tone (McCarthy, 2006) used in Michelle Obama's speech. The results of the study showed that Michelle Obama uses all kinds of tone in her speech, namely Rise, Rise-fall, Fall, Fall-rise and Level. The dominant tone used by her is the Rise-fall. Tone Fall shows sadness, fall-rise tone show dissapointment, rise tone show happiness, rise-fall tone express hopeness and the last is level tone to show that speaker certain with her statement. It can be concluded that content of her speech is about motivation.