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1 results

  • Due to increased variability, the expanded vowel and tone space in Mandarin IDS does not lead to enhanced contrasts

  • Ping Tang, Nan Xu Rattanasone, Ivan Yuen, Katherine Demuth, Titia Benders
  • Journal:
    Journal of Child Language , First View
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    28 March 2025, pp. 1-13
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  • Expanded vowel or tone space in IDS has traditionally been interpreted as evidence of enhanced acoustic contrasts. However, emerging evidence from various languages shows that the within-category acoustic variability of vowels and tones also increases in IDS, offsetting the benefit of space expansion and leading to non-enhanced, or reduced acoustic contrasts. This study re-analysed a corpus of Mandarin IDS and ADS, showing that, relative to ADS, vowels and tones in IDS display greater variability, resulting in non-enhanced contrasts. Thus, given increased variability, expanded vowel or tonal space in IDS may not necessarily equate to enhanced acoustic contrasts.