Sugiyama Yukiko
Keio University, Tokyo, Japan.
Phonetica. 2017;74(2):107-123. doi: 10.1159/000453069. Epub 2017 Apr 7.
Phonological contrasts are typically encoded with multiple acoustic correlates to ensure efficient communication. Studies have shown that such phonetic redundancy is found not only in segmental contrasts, but also in suprasegmental contrasts such as tone. In Japanese, fundamental frequency (F0) is the primary cue for pitch accent. However, little is known about its secondary cues. In the present study, a perception experiment was conducted to examine whether any secondary cues exist for Japanese accent. First, minimal pairs of final-accented and unaccented words were identified using a database, resulting in 14 pairs of words. These words were then produced by a native Tokyo Japanese speaker, and presented to participants in both unedited and edited forms. Edited speech stimuli were created by replacing F0 in the natural speech stimuli with white noise. While word identification by Tokyo Japanese speakers had higher accuracy for natural speech than for edited speech, the accuracy exceeded the chance level for edited speech, suggesting the existence of secondary cues for Japanese accent. Acoustic analysis of the stimuli revealed that relative mean amplitude and relative maximum amplitude were greater for final-accented words than for unaccented words.
音位对立通常由多种声学相关特征进行编码，以确保有效沟通。研究表明，这种语音冗余不仅存在于音段对立中，也存在于诸如声调等超音段对立中。在日语中，基频（F0）是音高重音的主要线索。然而，对于其次要线索却知之甚少。在本研究中，进行了一项感知实验，以检验日语重音是否存在任何次要线索。首先，使用一个数据库识别出以重音结尾和非重音结尾的最小对立体单词，得到了14对单词。然后，由一位东京日语母语者说出这些单词，并以未编辑和编辑后的形式呈现给参与者。编辑后的语音刺激是通过用白噪声替换自然语音刺激中的F0而创建的。虽然东京日语母语者对自然语音的单词识别准确率高于编辑后的语音，但编辑后的语音识别准确率超过了随机水平，这表明日语重音存在次要线索。对刺激的声学分析表明，以重音结尾的单词的相对平均振幅和相对最大振幅比对非重音结尾的单词更大。
