CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.6 Mandarin tone
2.6.1 The perception of Mandarin Chinese tones
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2.4.4 The acoustic-phonetic cues of affricates
There are three pairs of affricates in Mandarin, /t /, /tȹ /, /t /, /tȹ /, /ts/, and /tȹs/.
According to Ladefoged (2000), an affricate is simply a sequence of a stop followed
by a homorganic fricative. Therefore, it can be inferred that affricates have the
acoustic-phonetic characteristics of both stops and fricatives.
2.5 The acoustic-phonetic cues of the vowels in Taiwan Mandarin
Phonetically speaking, there are overall 12 vowels in Taiwan Mandarin,
including 4 high vowels ([i], [u], [y], and [ ]), 2 low vowels ([a] and [ ]), as well as 6
mid vowels ([e], [ ], [ə], [ ], [o], and [ ]). Vowels have very different phonetic cues
from consonants. First of all, vowels have much longer duration than consonants.
Second, the formants of vowels are much clearer than those of consonants. Third, the
energy of vowels is stronger than that of consonants, causing darker spectrogram.
Fourth, the F0 in vowels displays the tones in Mandarin. From the acoustic-phonetic
cues, vowels can be distinguished from consonants.
2.6 Mandarin tone
2.6.1The perception of Mandarin Chinese tones
Lexical tones are pitch patterns that can distinguish lexical meanings in a given
language. In Mandarin Chinese, tones, like the aspirated and unaspirated stops, are
phonemic features that can differentiate word meanings. Mandarin Chinese
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phonemically distinguishes four tones, which are Tone 1, with high-level pitch, Tone
2, with high-rising pitch, Tone 3, with low falling-rising pitch, and Tone 4, with
high-falling pitch (Chao, 1948). The same syllable structure can have different
meanings if it carries different tones. For instance, ma with Tone 1 has the meaning of
‘mother’; ma with Tone 2 has the meaning of ‘numbness’; ma with Tone 3 has the
meaning of ‘horse’; ma with Tone 4 has the meaning of ‘scold’.
There are several factors that can affect the perception of Mandarin Chinese
tones. First, fundamental frequency plays a role in the Mandarin Chinese tone
perception. Previous acoustic studies have found that the F0 height and F0 contour are
the acoustic cues for Mandarin Chinese tone perception. Howie (1976) performed the
tone perception experiments to test whether the participants could identify the correct
tones of the stimuli. Howie designed three contrasted conditions, which were
synthetic speech with natural F0 patterns, synthetic speech with the monotonic F0
contour, and synthetic speech sounding like a whisper. The results showed that
subjects easily recognized the synthetic speech which F0 patterns were maintained.
Gandour (1984) and Tseng & Cohen (1985) indicated that both F0 height and F0
contour are very crucial acoustic cues for Mandarin tone perception. Neither one can
be missed. Moore and Jongman (1997) differentiated Tone 2 from Tone 3 in terms of
two characteristics. One is turning point, which is the point in time at which the tone
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changes from falling to rising, and the other is ∆F0, which is the F0 change from the
onset to the turning point. Moore and Jongman found that the turning point of Tone 2
is earlier than that of Tone 3, and the ∆F0 of Tone 2 is smaller than that of Tone 3.
Comparing the acoustic cues of Tone 3 and Tone 4, Garding et al. (1986) found that
the stimuli which have the early peak of pitch and fall dramatically after the turning
point tend to be perceived as Tone 4. The stimuli which stay at low F0 range and have
long duration tend to be recognized as Tone 3. This study demonstrates that F0
contour is of paramount importance for Mandarin tone perception.
The second factor that can influence the perception of Mandarin Chinese tones is
the temporal properties of tones. According to the production data, Nordenhake and
Svantesson (1983) found that the duration of Tone 3 is the longest, which is only
slightly longer than that of Tone 2, while the duration of Tone 4 is the shortest. Given
that the F0 contours are similar between Tone 2 and Tone 3, Nordenhake and
Svantesson (1983) further indicated that Tone 2 could be perceived as Tone 3 if it is
lengthened.
In addition to F0 and duration, amplitude can also affect the perception of
Mandarin Chinese tones though only to a small extent. Whalen and Xu (1992)
designed stimuli whose formant structures and F0 contours were removed, but the
amplitude cues of the stimuli were reserved, and then they asked the participants to
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identify the stimuli. The results demonstrated that participants could successfully
identify Tone 2, Tone 3, as well as Tone 4, but fail to recognize Tone 1.
From the above mentioned studies on acoustic phonetic characteristics of
Mandarin Chinese tones, it is clear that fundamental frequency, turning point, ∆F0,
duration, and amplitude are the acoustic cues which play a critical role in the
perception of Mandarin Chinese tones. Nevertheless, the acoustic quality of tones can
be influenced by the surrounding context, which may also affect the perception of
tones.
Shen (1990) studied the tonal coarticulation of Mandarin Chinese and found that
tonal coarticulation not only affects the F0 height of the onset or offset, but it affects
the F0 height of the entire word. The tones that are most easily to be affected are those
which follow Tone 1 and Tone 2. Both Tone 1 and Tone 2 have high offset F0 value,
which can raise the entire F0 value of the following tones. In addition, the high onset
F0 value of Tone 4 also has the effect of raising the whole F0 value of the preceding
tones. Unlike Tone 1, the offset of Tone 2, and onset of Tone 4, the onset of Tone 2 as
well as Tone 3, whose onset F0 value sits on the middle of the frequency range, do not
have the ability of raising the entire F0 value of the preceding tones. In addition to all
these findings above, shen also found that the tonal contour does not change even if
the tone’s entire F0 value has risen. Shen finally pointed out that tonal coarticulation
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cannot extend beyond one syllable.