Perceptual reorganisation of infants' speech perception has been found from 6 months for consonants and earlier for vowels. Recently, similar reorganisation has been found for lexical tone between 6 and 9 months of age. Given that there is a close relationship between vowels and tones, this study investigates whether the perceptual reorganisation…

This study investigated the effects of first language prosodic transfer on the perception and production of English lexical stress and the relation between stress perception and production by second language learners. To test the effect of Thai tonal distribution rules and stress patterns on native Thai speakers' perception and production of…

The current study lays the groundwork for a model of Mandarin tones based on both native speakers' and non-native speakers' perception and production. It demonstrates that there is variability in non-native speakers' tone productions and that there are differences in the perceptual boundaries in native speakers and non-native speakers. There…

This study investigated the phonological awareness of 219 first, second, and fourth grade Cantonese-speaking children from the south of China, who received immersion Mandarin instruction beginning in the first grade. Children received onset, rime and tone awareness tasks in Cantonese and Mandarin. Children performed better on the Cantonese onset…

This study examined the perception of the four Mandarin lexical tones by Mandarin-naive Hong Kong Cantonese, Japanese, and Canadian English listener groups. Their performance on an identification task, following a brief familiarization task, was analyzed in terms of tonal sensitivities (A-prime scores on correct identifications) and tonal errors…

This paper investigates the relationship between the phonological features of tone and tone perception in Thai. Specifically, it tests the hypothesis (proposed by Moren & Zsiga, 2006) that the principle perceptual cues to the five-way tonal contrast in Thai are high and low pitch targets aligned to moras. Results of four perception studies, one…

Using Mandarin Chinese, a "tone language" in which the pitch contours of syllables differentiate words, the authors examined the acoustic modifications of infant-directed speech (IDS) at the syllable level to test 2 hypotheses: (a) the overall increase in pitch and intonation contour that occurs in IDS at the phrase level would not distort…

Two studies explored the nature of phonological awareness (PA) in Chinese. In Study 1, involving 146 children, awareness of phoneme onset did not differ from chance levels at ages 3-5 years in preschool but increased to 70% correct in first grade, when children first received phonological coding (Pinyin) instruction. Similarly, tone awareness was…

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of intensive voice therapy on Cantonese speakers with Parkinson's disease. The effect of the treatment on lexical tone was of particular interest. Four Cantonese speakers with idiopathic Parkinson's disease received treatment based on the principles of Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT).…

We examined the effects of a tutoring package (verbal modeling, prompts, and contingent praise/Chinese conversations with the tutor) on the performance of a college student's Mandarin Chinese pronunciation. The effects of the tutoring package were analyzed using a multiple baseline design across two sets of 50 Chinese characters. The tutoring…

This Mende dictionary is based on the eastern (up-country) dialect and uses the standard spelling of the Sierra Leone Provincial Literature Bureau. Each entry consists of the Mende word, an indication of its tone and part of speech, the English gloss, and examples of usage in short phrases or sentences. A short Introduction provides notes on the…

Describes the phonological history of modern Cantonese. Part one includes phonotactic conditions, tonal developments, and initial changes. (EKN)

An acoustic-phonetic study of six Vietnamese tones was carried out on approximately 3000 sound spectrograms of four native speakers of the Hanoi dialect. Three temporal segments, four pitch levels, and glottalization were identified as important cues for tone recognition. (Author/FWB)

Analysis of Taiwanese tone sandhi, i.e., the various changes in tonemes as a result of their mutual influence on each other when used in conjunction. (RS)

The author discusses his concept of "tonal spelling" for Chinese. This system spells out the patterns for the tone classes without marking their tone values; the same spelling formation spells out the same tone class and makes tonal orthography a "regular, striking, neat and clean-shaven script." Following a discussion of the…