Electrophysiological Signatures of Perceiving Alternated Tone in Mandarin Chinese: Mismatch Negativity to Underlying Tone Conflict.

ABSTRACT: Although phonological alternation is prevalent in languages, the process of perceiving phonologically alternated sounds is poorly understood, especially at the neurolinguistic level. We examined the process of perceiving Mandarin 3rd tone sandhi (T3 + T3 → T2 + T3) with a mismatch negativity (MMN) experiment. Our design has two independent variables (whether the deviant undergoes tone sandhi; whether the standard and the deviant have matched underlying tone). These two independent variables modulated ERP responses in both the first and the second syllables. Notably, despite the apparent segmental conflict between the standard and the deviant in all conditions, MMN is only observed when neither the standard nor the deviant undergoes tone sandhi, suggesting that discovering the underlying re

SUBMITTER: Zeng Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8504678 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature