Individual differences in Mandarin focus production
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36505/ExLing-2020/11/0057/000472Keywords:
individual differences, speech production, prosody, focus, MandarinAbstract
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.
References
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Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
