609 Williams Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2011 Dec;130(6):4063-9. doi: 10.1121/1.3651818.
There is a tendency across languages to use a rising pitch contour to convey question intonation and a falling pitch contour to convey a statement. In a lexical tone language such as Mandarin Chinese, rising and falling pitch contours are also used to differentiate lexical meaning. How, then, does the multiplexing of the F(0) channel affect the perception of question and statement intonation in a lexical tone language? This study investigated the effects of lexical tones and focus on the perception of intonation in Mandarin Chinese. The results show that lexical tones and focus impact the perception of sentence intonation. Question intonation was easier for native speakers to identify on a sentence with a final falling tone and more difficult to identify on a sentence with a final rising tone, suggesting that tone identification intervenes in the mapping of F(0) contours to intonational categories and that tone and intonation interact at the phonological level. In contrast, there is no evidence that the interaction between focus and intonation goes beyond the psychoacoustic level. The results provide insights that will be useful for further research on tone and intonation interactions in both acoustic modeling studies and neurobiological studies.
语言中存在一种倾向，即使用上升语调来传达疑问语调，使用下降语调来传达陈述语调。在汉语等声调语言中，上升和下降的语调也被用来区分词汇意义。那么，F0 声道的多路复用如何影响声调语言中疑问和陈述语调的感知呢？本研究考察了声调与焦点对汉语语调感知的影响。结果表明，声调与焦点影响句子语调的感知。母语者更容易识别以降调结尾的句子的疑问语调，而更难识别以升调结尾的句子的疑问语调，这表明语调识别会干扰 F0 轮廓到语调类别的映射，并且在语音层面上，语调与语调相互作用。相比之下，没有证据表明焦点和语调之间的相互作用超出了心理声学水平。研究结果为进一步研究声调与语调的相互作用提供了一些启示，这对于声学模型研究和神经生物学研究都将是有用的。
