Perceptual evaluation of Mandarin tone sandhi production by Cantonese speakers before and after perceptual training

Abstract

This study is the first to examine the effect of perceptual training on Mandarin tone sandhi production by Cantonese speakers. Auditory and visual inputs of tone sandhi contrasts were included in a short-term laboratory training, and the training was followed by an identification test. Twenty-four native speakers of Cantonese participated in the study, which comprised the training session and a pre- and post-training recording session. There were 192 target stimuli of real words and wug words and 192 filler words in each recording session. Two native Mandarin-speaking linguists perceptually evaluated a total of 23040 syllables on a 101-point scale. The results show that Cantonese speakers may be able to improve their lexical word production in the context of T3+T1/T2/T4 by perceptual training or high familiarity of stimuli, whereas the application of Mandarin sandhi Tone 3 slightly improves within a short time. Besides, the participants consistently apply Mandarin half-third tone sandhi rule with a lexical mechanism rather than a computational mechanism, whereas the preference to lexical mechanism is not found in the application of Mandarin third tone sandhi rule.