The ability to map similar sounding words to different meanings alone is far from enough for successful speech processing. To overcome variability in the speech signal, young learners must also recognize words across surface variations. Previous studies have shown that infants at 14 months are able to use variations in word-internal cues (i.e.,…

Purpose: Although variability of training materials has the potential to benefit the learning of lexical tones, the benefit is contingent on an individual's pitch aptitude. Previous studies did not segregate immediate learning and consolidation after an overnight interval, and little is known about how pitch aptitude differences affect…

This dissertation investigates Voice Onset Time (VOT), which serves as an essential property for differentiating plosive consonants in L1 and L2 Mandarin Chinese. It surveys VOT variations and demonstrates that they are affected by several phonetic and phonological properties, e.g., lexical tone, place of articulation (POA), speech rate,…

This paper investigates the phonology of L2 speech and its impact on intelligibility in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) contexts. Many studies have considered speaker-related characteristics, such as speech styles and pronunciation features, that influence the intelligibility of L2 speech for both nonnative speakers (NNS) and native speakers…

While tonal systems have typically been classified as "pitch accent" or "true tonal", there is growing evidence that systems instead have a variety of features which vary across languages, rather than falling into discrete categories. These category labels have been used widely in literature about the languages of New Guinea,…

This article reports a study that aimed to find out whether F0 patterns of L2 English produced by Vietnamese speakers are different to those of native English speakers, whether the non-native F0 patterns are transferred from Vietnamese, and to what extent English and Vietnamese F0 profiles differ. Ten native/L1 Australian English speakers, 20…

This dissertation studies the realization of the rhythm of Taiwan Mandarin and focuses on the quality of its unstressed (neutral-tone) syllables. Taiwan Mandarin (TM) is often described as more syllable-timed than Standard Mandarin (SM). In TM, the unstressed syllables occur less frequently. The quality of the unstressed (neutral-tone) syllables…

Vietnamese (Vietic, Mon-Khmer, Austroasiatic) is monosyllabic and tonal. Most Mon-Khmer (MK) languages are multisyllabic and atonal. Evidence suggests that Vietnamese (VN) has had its tones less than one millennium, and that other languages (both MK and non-MK) are also acquiring tones, a process called "tonogenesis". Comparing VN's…

The current study lays the groundwork for a model of Mandarin tones based on both native speakers' and non-native speakers' perception and production. It demonstrates that there is variability in non-native speakers' tone productions and that there are differences in the perceptual boundaries in native speakers and non-native speakers. There…

Suggests that the departing tone in Chinese arose not through the loss of the final "h," but through a glottalized phonation stage that is still observable. Historical sources supporting this theory are presented, and an account of the development of middle Chinese tones into Mandarin is proposed. (SED)

Discusses dialectal variation in the lexical tone system of Ma'ya, an Austronesian language featuring three lexically contrastive tonemes. Representative acoustic data were collected from the Missol, Slawati, and Laganyan dialects, and on the basis of these data, an account is given of their tone systems and of how these tone systems compare to…

Illustrates how the separate economic and political development and the ensuing lack of contact between Hong Kong and Guangzhou over the last 50 years have resulted in quantifiable tonal differences in the Cantonese spoken in these two cities. (16 references) (Author/CK)

As an example leading toward a social grammar of language, three emotions are analyzed in English and Yoruba. Certain communication features in English that lie in intonation and stress require a change of grammar in Yoruba and that these changes are subject to further categorization through status and solidarity. (Author/RM)

The Mhong Language Council's 1982 conference had as its objectives: (1) a compromise spelling system to accommodate both White and Blue Mhong pronunciation; (2) simplification of the current Mhong spelling system; (3) review of approaches to the expression of foreign concepts in Mhong; and (4) adoption of capitalization and punctuation conventions…

Twenty texts in the Chinese dialect of Shanghai city are presented as a tool for those familiar with some dialect of Chinese who are learning this variety. The texts, recorded as spontaneous speech, were originally collected for grammatical analysis and have been revised somewhat for print form. They are arranged in approximate order of…