The development of tonal duration in Mandarin-speaking children

Developmental changes in suprasegmental tonal duration were investigated in monolingual Mandarin-speaking children. Tone durations were acoustically measured in five- and eight-year-old children and adults. Children's tone duration and variability decreased with age. Five-year-olds produced sig...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:JASA express letters 2021-08, Vol.1 (8), p.085202-085202
Main Authors: Yang, Jie, Davis, Barbara L, Diehl, Randy L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Child
Child, Preschool
Humans
Learning
Niacinamide
Phonetics
Time Factors
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Summary:Developmental changes in suprasegmental tonal duration were investigated in monolingual Mandarin-speaking children. Tone durations were acoustically measured in five- and eight-year-old children and adults. Children's tone duration and variability decreased with age. Five-year-olds produced significantly longer tone durations than adults. Adult-like duration patterns existed in all children: Tone 4 was the shortest and tone 3 the longest. Duration differences between tones 2 and 3 became larger between five- and eight-year-olds. Results suggest a prolonged process of tone development beyond establishing phonological contrasts, which can be viewed as a hybrid of physiological production capacities and perceptual learning for maximal contrastivity.
ISSN:2691-1191
2691-1191
DOI:10.1121/10.0005892