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Andus Wing-Kuen Wong et al., "Tonal and syllabic encoding in overt Cantonese Chinese speech production: An ERP study", PLOS ONE 2023:

Abstract: This study was conducted to investigate how syllables and lexical tones are processed in Cantonese speech production using the picture-word interference task with concurrent recording of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Cantonese-speaking participants were asked to name aloud individually presented pictures and ignore an accompanying auditory word distractor. The target and distractor either shared the same word-initial syllable with the same tone (Tonal-Syllable related), the same word-initial syllable without the same tone (Atonal-Syllable related), the same tone only (Tone alone related), or were phonologically unrelated. Participants’ naming responses were faster, relative to an unrelated control, when the target and distractor shared the same tonal- or atonal-syllable but null effect was found in the Tone alone related condition. The mean ERP amplitudes (per each 100-ms time window) were subjected to stimulus-locked (i.e., time-locked to stimulus onset) and response-locked (i.e., time-locked to response onset) analyses. Significant differences between related and unrelated ERP waves were similarly observed in both Tonal-Syllable related and Atonal-Syllable related conditions in the time window of 400–500 ms post-stimulus. However, distinct ERP effects were observed in these two phonological conditions within the 500-ms pre-response period. In addition, null effects were found in the Tone alone related condition in both stimulus-locked and response-locked analyses. These results suggest that in Cantonese spoken word production, the atonal syllable of the target is retrieved first and then associated with the target lexical tone, consistent with the view that tone has an important role to play at a late stage of phonological encoding in tonal language production.

I was very happy to read this paper because its findings corroborate my own informal investigations concerning the priority of CV articulation in syllables versus tones.  Hardly a week goes by when I don't ask my students from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan which bothers them more, mispronunciation of the consonants and vowels in a syllable or use of the wrong tones.  They invariably tell me that the consonants and vowels are more important than the tones.  During the last two decades, I've written many posts that allude to this question.  I've even encountered situations where students tell me that most people use the "wrong" tone(s) to pronounce their name, and it doesn't bother them at all, whereas they would immediately notice it if someone pronounced their name using the wrong consonants and vowels.  (See, for example, the first item in the bibliography.)

 

Selected readings

• "Recognizing half of a character and half of a word" (5/2/21)
• "Hypercorrect Mandarin tones" (10/15/23)
• "The Four Tones" (6/30/10)
• "When intonation overrides tone" (6/4/13)
• "When intonation overrides tone, part 2" (5/11/17)
• "When intonation overrides tone, part 3" (2/7/18)
• "When intonation overrides tone, part 4" (8/26/20)
• "When intonation overrides tone, part 5" (9/25/20) — with a long, cumulative list of relevant posts
• "When intonation overrides tone, part 6" (5/9/21)
• "Speed vs. efficiency in speech production and reception" (9/11/19)
• "Matthew Pottinger's speech in Mandarin" (5/9/20)
• "'Ni hao' for foreigners" (10/11/16)
• "Sorry, my Chinese is not so good" (6/6/17)
• "Dissimilation, stress, sandhi, and other tonal variations in Mandarin" (8/26/2014)
• "Stress, emphasis, pause, and meaning in Mandarin" (118/17)
• "On swallowing and slurring in Pekingese" (5/3/19)
• "OMG moments induced by allegro forms in Pekingese" (1/26/12)
• "Where did Chinese tones come from and where are they going? " (6/25/13)
• "Tones and the brain" (3/3/15)

There are many other posts on the origins of tones, their canonical forms, departures from the canonical forms, tones in the various topolects, and the evolution of tones.

• "Tones for real" (2/5/18) — must read for anyone who is interested in the point of this post, referencing the observations of John McWhorter on tones in Mandarin

A few posts that touch upon John's ideas concerning tones:

• "McWhorter on the global linguascape of 2115" (1/26/15)
• "John McWhorter responds" (1/29/15)
• "Homophonophobia" (2/7/15)

[Thanks to Ted McClure]

January 8, 2024 @ 7:39 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Phonetics and phonology, Psycholinguistics, Tones

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