The Role of Surface and Underlying Forms When Processing Tonal Alternations in Mandarin Chinese: A Mismatch Negativity Study

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Yu-Fu Chien¹  Xiao Yang³  Robert Fiorentino³  Joan A. Sereno³ 

[1] Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Fudan University;Department of Modern Languages, DePaul University, United States;Department of Linguistics, University of Kansas, United States

关键词: event-related potentials;    mismatch negativity;    tone;    tone 3 sandhi;    phonological alternation;    Mandarin Chinese;    spoken word recognition;    lexical representation;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00646

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Phonological alternation (sound change depending on the phonological environment) poses challenges to spoken word recognition models. Mandarin Chinese T3 sandhi is such a phenomenon in which a tone 3 (T3) changes into a tone 2 (T2) when followed by another T3. In a mismatch negativity (MMN) study examining Mandarin Chinese T3 sandhi, participants passively listened to either a T2 word [tʂu2 je4] /tʂu2 je4/, a T3 word [tʂu3 je4] /tʂu3 je4/, a sandhi word [tʂu2 jen3] /tʂu3 jen3/, or a mix of T3 and sandhi word standards. The deviant in each condition was a T2 word [tʂu2]. Results showed an MMN only in the T2 and T3 conditions but not in the Sandhi or Mix conditions. All conditions also yielded omission MMNs. This pattern cannot be explained based on the surface forms of standards and deviants; rather these data suggest an underspecified or underlying T3 stored linguistic representation used in spoken word processing.

【 授权许可】

CC BY