Revisiting focus production in Mandarin Chinese: Some preliminary findings (original) (raw)

Individual differences in Mandarin focus production

ExLing 2020: The 11th International Conference of Experimental Linguistics, 2020

This paper investigated whether and how individual speakers of Mandarin Chinese (Mandarin) mark prosodic focus (broad focus vs verb focus) differently in their production, and tested focus effects on mean F0, duration and intensity. The findings indicated the role of the three acoustic cues in Mandarin focus marking at both the group and individual levels. Meanwhile, the individual data showed great variations among speakers in terms of the extent to which the cues were employed. It is proposed that the dynamics of acoustic cues should be considered in future studies and caution should be taken when selecting stimuli for focus perception studies.

Cross-language data on five types of prosodic focus

Speech Prosody 2016, 2016

To examine the relative roles of language-specific and language-universal mechanisms in the production of prosodic focus, we compared production of five different types of focus by native speakers of English and Mandarin. Two comparable dialogues were constructed for each language, with the same words appearing in focused and unfocused position; 48 speakers recorded two dialogues each in their respective native language. Duration, F 0 (mean, maximum, range), and rmsintensity (mean, maximum) of all critical word tokens were measured. Across the different types of focus, cross-language differences were observed in the degree to which English versus Mandarin speakers use the different prosodic parameters to mark focus, suggesting that while prosody may be universally available for expressing focus, the means of its employment may be considerably language-specific.

English Focus Perception by Mandarin Listeners

Languages, 2019

This study compared how well native Mandarin and native English speakers can perceive prosodically marked focus in English echo questions. Twenty-five yes-no echo questions were produced with a sentence focus, a verb focus, and an object focus. After hearing each sentence, they were asked to choose a correct response. Native English listeners were more accurate than native Mandarin on verb and object focus, but not on sentence focus. More importantly, both groups confused object focus with sentence focus and vice versa. However, confusion between object and verb focus, and between object and sentence focus was infrequent. These results suggest that, in some cases, (1) acoustic prominence on the head of a phrase or its internal argument can project to the entire phrase and make the entire phrase focused, and (2) parallel transmission of the two functions of intonation, and cross-linguistic variation in focus marking (prosodically versus syntactically) may contribute to their perceptual ambiguity.

Comparison of English narrow focus production by L1 English, Beijing and Taiwan Mandarin speakers

2012 International Conference on Speech Database and Assessments, 2012

L1 English and two varieties of L1 Mandarin English speech data were extracted from the Taiwan AESOP corpus (Asian English Speech cOrpus Project) for the purpose of investigating differences in the realization of English narrow focus by L1 speakers of North American English, Taiwan Mandarin and Beijing Mandarin. Results show the combined effect of two patterns of L2 focus production: general underdifferentiation of on-focus and post-focus contrasts, which was exhibited by both L2 speaker groups, and transfer of L1-specific prosodic features, which can be argued to represent the source of difference between the two L2 groups. Overall, on-focus/post-focus contrasts in mean F0, amplitude and pitch range were realized most robustly by L1 English speakers. L1 Taiwan Mandarin speakers produced a smaller increase in mean F0 and amplitude for on-focus constituents and much smaller decrease in mean F0 and amplitude on post-focus constituents than L1 English speakers did, whereas Beijing Mandarin speakers produced no increase in mean F0 in on-focus constituents, and the smallest decrease in mean F0 on post-focus constituents, but a 35% higher post-focus compression of intensity than Taiwan Mandarin speakers did. Notably, both L2 speaker groups failed to produce post-focus compression of pitch range, which has been shown to be a highly salient cue to the presence of focus in English.

Prosodic Organization and Focus Realization in Taiwan Mandarin

2018

Cross-linguistically, the way that focus is marked through prosody can depend on a variety of factors, including local constraints on prosodic organization or the position of a word within the larger focus constituent. Here we report on a production study that explores the possible influence of prosodic organization and position on focus realization in Taiwan Mandarin. The materials consisted of sentences in which the syntactic subject consisted of a monosyllabic numeral, classifier, and noun. The context was manipulated to elicit narrow information focus (i.e., using wh-questions) on either the numeral, the noun, or the entire NP. The resulting target syllables were then analyzed in terms of their F0 characteristics, duration, and amplitude. The results revealed clear asymmetries in how the numeral and noun were realized in their corresponding singleword narrow focus condition versus in the NP focus condition, though confiding to the intrinsic tone-patterns (e.g., Tone 1 versus Ton...

Focus Acoustics and Prosodic Organization in Hong Kong Cantonese and Taiwan Mandarin

ICPhS, 2019

The acoustic realization of focus can be influenced by the position of a focalized word in a larger constituent and by constraints on prosodic organization of an utterance. Here, we report four production studies that explore the potential effects of local prosodic organization on the realization of focus in Hong Kong Cantonese (HKC) and Taiwan Mandarin (TwM). The materials consisted of sentences in which a syntactic subject noun phrase (consisted of monosyllabic numeral, classifier, and noun) expressing either corrective or wh focus. The span of the focus constituent within such an NP was controlled using short conversations indicating either (i) the numeral only focus, (ii) the noun only focus, or (iii) the whole noun phrase focus. Our results showed that the acoustic realization of focus in HKC and TwM extends beyond general acoustic highlighting of focus constituents, i.e., the acoustic realization of focus in HKC and TwM are influenced by constraints of prosodic organization.

Prosodic focus marking in Dali Mandarin

Tonal Aspects of Languages 2016, 2016

This study investigated prosodic marking of focus in Dali Mandarin, a variety of Xinan Guanhua (Southwestern Mandarin) spoken in Dali city, the capital of Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, China. Dali Mandarin as a variety of Mandarin has had heavy contact with Bai, a Tibeto-Burman language, for a long time. We adopted a semi-spontaneous experimental approach to elicit SVO sentences with different focus conditions. Our data showed that native speakers of Dali Mandarin lengthened the duration of focal constituents compared to non-focal constituents for marking focus. However, they did not use duration to distinguish focus types differing in size and contrastivity. Further, pitch played no role at all in signaling focus, or in differentiating focus types. These results thus suggested that Dali Mandarin speakers use prosody by exploiting duration to mark focus. Therefore, the encoding of focus in Dali Mandarin is more similar to Bai than to Beijing Mandarin, the latter being genetically more closely related to Dali Mandarin. This result suggests that prosodic focus marking in Dali Mandarin has been influenced by Bai due to the heavy language contact.

Effects of Prosodic Focus on Voice Onset Time (VOT) in Chongming Chinese

2019

Prosodic focus is phonetically realized by increasing intensity, extending duration, and expanding pitch rage of focused components (Xu et al., 2012). Previous studies have also found the effect of prosodic focus on enlarging two-way or three-way stop contrast by lengthening the VOT (voice onset time) of voiceless or aspirated consonants (e.g. Choi, 2003; Chen, 2011). The present study investigates the influence of prosodic focus on the realization of VOT of an under-studied language, Chongming Chinese. Twelve monosyllabic words were selected and embedded in carrier sentences with different discourse conditions: one baseline neutral focus condition and three focus conditions. Precursor questions were prepared to elicit production from native speakers of Chongming Chinese. Results showed the significant main effects of stop types and discourse conditions on VOT realization. VOTs were shortened in unaspirated and voiced stops in the on-focus condition, suggesting a different way of ex...

Focus encoding and prosodic structure in Shanghai Chinese

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2017

This paper investigated the phonetic effects of contrastive focus on F0, duration, and intensity patterns in disyllabic groups which undergo left- and right-dominant sandhis in Shanghai Chinese, in order to further the authors' understanding of the nature of a left-/right-dominant sandhi and the relation between focus encoding and prosodic structure. Results showed that the left-dominant sandhi was characterized by tone rightward spreading and formed one prosodic word, while the right-dominant sandhi was characterized by phonetic reduction and formed one prosodic phrase. Furthermore, F0 adjustment patterns induced by focus were different in the two sandhis, which indicated that focus was encoded via the prosodic structure.

Prosodic Realization of Focus in Bilingual Production of Southern Min and Mandarin

Previously post-focus compression (PFC) -the lowering of fundamental frequency (F 0 ) and intensity of post-focal words to below those of the same words in identical sentences with neutral focus -was found in Beijing Mandarin but not in Taiwan Southern Min and Taiwan Mandarin. This study investigated whether the presence of PFC would vary with age and language use of societal bilinguals of Southern Min and Mandarin. Three groups of bilingual speakers of Quanzhou Southern Min and Mandarin, age around 20, 40 and 60, were examined for their prosodic realization of focus. All the speakers acquired Southern Min first, followed by Mandarin in childhood, but the younger speakers used more Mandarin than the older speakers. Comparisons of duration, intensity and F 0 in focused, prefocus and post-focus words indicated that all groups produced Taiwan-like focus, i.e., without PFC, in Southern Min, but the youngest group produced Beijing-like PFC in Mandarin. These findings reveal that increased language experience, such as greater amount of second language (L2) use, correlates with increased ability to produce native-like PFC in L2, suggesting that PFC can be used as an indicator in assessing L2 speech acquisition.