Dr. YANG YikeHan, DongDongHan2025-07-242025-07-242024Yang, Y., & Han, D. (5 June 2024). Revisiting tone merger in production and perception of Hong Kong Cantonese. International Max Planck Research School for Language Sciences (IMPRS) 2024, Nijmegen.https://imprsconference2024.wordpress.com/programme/http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11861/24061As an on-going sound change in Hong Kong Cantonese, the phenomenon of tone merger has been documented in several studies. However, there is no consensus regarding the specific tone merging pairs, the production-perception link, or the factors contributing to tone merger. To investigate the most recent tone merger phenomenon in Hong Kong Cantonese, this study conducted a tone identification experiment, a tone discrimination experiment, and a picture-elicited tone production experiment with 33 native speakers of Hong Kong Cantonese. Statistical analyses were carried out at both the group and individual levels. While the participants exhibited lower accuracies in identifying Tone 2, Tone 3, Tone 5, and Tone 6 compared with Tone 1 and Tone 4, they primarily struggled to differentiate between Tone 2 and Tone 5 and between Tone 3 and Tone 6. At the group level, the participants were able to distinguish the six tones in their production. More variations were observed at the individual level. Participants who merged certain tone pairs in perception did not necessarily merge the tones in their production, suggesting an asymmetry between production and perception. Moreover, the accuracies of tone discrimination were correlated with auditory processing abilities, revealing the potential role of domain-general auditory processing skills in sound change.enTone MergerSound ChangeProductionPerceptionCantoneseConference Paper