Segmental
Phonemes and Tonal Phonemes in Comprehension of Cantonese
T.K. Keung & R. Hoosain |
Pairs
of Cantonese sentences were constructed which differed in only a
mono-syllable character in each case. The two syllables involved
could either differ in their vowels or their tones, or both. Subjects
heard recordings of one of each pair of sentences and were asked
to identify the sentence. It was found that difference in segmental
phonemes provided more effective perceptual clues than difference
in tonal phonemes, and segmental phonemes alone appeared to be not
significantly different from segmental phonemes plus tonal phonemes.
Obtained results were not related to the possible response bias due
to relative naturalness/familiarity of particular constituent sentences
of the pairs. Some possible explanations are discussed.
|