Tone dissimilarity judgments by Chinese listeners
声调异同辨别的测试
Jack Gandour
Abstract 摘要
Fifty listeners from each of three Chinese tone languages (Cantonese, Mandarin, Taiwanese) made direct paired-comparison judgments of tone dissimilarity. Stimuli consisted of 19 different fundamental frequency trajectories (5 level, 4 rising, 4 falling, 3 falling-rising, 3 rising-falling) superimposed on a synthetic speech-like monosyllable. The dissimilarities data were organized into 150 dissimilarity matrices and analyzed by the INDSCAL multidimensional scaling model. The INDSCAL analysis revealed two dimensions which were interpreted primarily as “height” and “direction”. Results from an analysis of variance of dimension weights indicated that Cantonese listeners attached relatively more importance to the “height” dimension than either Mandarin or Taiwanese. Hierarchical clustering analysis indicated that differences in clustering of the stimulus tones can be related to abstract structural properties of listeners’ phonological systems.
Journal of Chinese Linguistics volume 12 (ISSN 0091-3723)
Copyright © 1984 Journal of Chinese Linguistices. All rights reserved.