This paper aims at investigating the Mandarin tone perception of native Kam speakers in Rongjiang area through the categorical perception experiment,and comparing with the results of the native Mandarin speakers.The r...This paper aims at investigating the Mandarin tone perception of native Kam speakers in Rongjiang area through the categorical perception experiment,and comparing with the results of the native Mandarin speakers.The results show that the native Kam speakers are able to differentiate phonemic categories among the four Mandarin tones in pairs at the linguistic level.At the behavioral level,the tone perception of T1-T2,T1-T3(T3 as baseline),T1-T4,T2-T4 and T3-T4(T3 as baseline)continua is shown to be categorical,but the degree of categorization is significantly lower than that of the Mandarin speakers.In T1-T3(T1 as baseline),T2-T3 and T3-T4(T4 as baseline)continua,the kam speakers fail to establish categorical perception,exhibiting continuous perception instead.The results indicate that complex tone system of the Kam language does not facilitate the categorical perception of Mandarin tones by Kam speakers.展开更多
基金supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China(22&ZD213)
文摘This paper aims at investigating the Mandarin tone perception of native Kam speakers in Rongjiang area through the categorical perception experiment,and comparing with the results of the native Mandarin speakers.The results show that the native Kam speakers are able to differentiate phonemic categories among the four Mandarin tones in pairs at the linguistic level.At the behavioral level,the tone perception of T1-T2,T1-T3(T3 as baseline),T1-T4,T2-T4 and T3-T4(T3 as baseline)continua is shown to be categorical,but the degree of categorization is significantly lower than that of the Mandarin speakers.In T1-T3(T1 as baseline),T2-T3 and T3-T4(T4 as baseline)continua,the kam speakers fail to establish categorical perception,exhibiting continuous perception instead.The results indicate that complex tone system of the Kam language does not facilitate the categorical perception of Mandarin tones by Kam speakers.
