Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Hong Kong, 34 Hospital Road, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, People's Republic of China.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2011 Feb;129(2):1012-23. doi: 10.1121/1.3531840.
In tone languages there are potential conflicts in the perception of lexical tone and intonation, as both depend mainly on the differences in fundamental frequency (F0) patterns. The present study investigated the acoustic cues associated with the perception of sentences as questions or statements in Cantonese, as a function of the lexical tone in sentence final position. Cantonese listeners performed intonation identification tasks involving complete sentences, isolated final syllables, and sentences without the final syllable (carriers). Sensitivity (d' scores) were similar for complete sentences and final syllables but were significantly lower for carriers. Sensitivity was also affected by tone identity. These findings show that the perception of questions and statements relies primarily on the F0 characteristics of the final syllables (local F0 cues). A measure of response bias (c) provided evidence for a general bias toward the perception of statements. Logistic regression analyses showed that utterances were accurately classified as questions or statements by using average F0 and F0 interval. Average F0 of carriers (global F0 cue) was also found to be a reliable secondary cue. These findings suggest that the use of F0 cues for the perception of intonation question in tonal languages is likely to be language-specific.
在声调语言中，词汇声调与语调的感知可能存在冲突，因为两者主要都依赖于基频（F0）模式的差异。本研究调查了与广东话句子作为疑问句或陈述句的感知相关的声学线索，作为句末声调的函数。广东话听众执行涉及完整句子、孤立的最后一个音节以及没有最后一个音节的句子（载体）的语调识别任务。对于完整的句子和最后一个音节，灵敏度（d'分数）相似，但对于载体，灵敏度显著降低。灵敏度也受到音调身份的影响。这些发现表明，疑问句和陈述句的感知主要依赖于最后一个音节的 F0 特征（局部 F0 线索）。响应偏差（c）的度量为感知陈述句的一般偏差提供了证据。逻辑回归分析表明，使用平均 F0 和 F0 间隔可以准确地将话语分类为疑问句或陈述句。还发现载体的平均 F0（全局 F0 线索）也是可靠的次要线索。这些发现表明，在声调语言中，使用 F0 线索感知语调疑问句可能是特定于语言的。
