Effect of language experience on the categorical perception of Cantonese vowel duration

Caicai Zhang, Gang Peng, William S.-Y. Wang

This study investigated the effect of language experience on the categorical perception of Cantonese vowel duration distinction. By comparing Cantonese and Mandarin listeners' performances, we found that: (1) duration change elicited categorical perception in the performance of Cantonese listeners, but not in Mandarin listeners; (2) Cantonese listeners were affected by the vowel quality differences, whereas Mandarin subjects were generally unbiased towards the quality differences; (3) effect of duration was overridden by the vowel quality [a] condition in the performance of Cantonese listeners. Our findings suggested that vowel quality is incorporated as a phonological cue in Cantonese.

doi: 10.21437/Interspeech.2011-74

Cite as: Zhang, C., Peng, G., Wang, W.S.-Y. (2011) Effect of language experience on the categorical perception of Cantonese vowel duration. Proc. Interspeech 2011, 169-172, doi: 10.21437/Interspeech.2011-74

@inproceedings{zhang11c_interspeech,
  author={Caicai Zhang and Gang Peng and William S.-Y. Wang},
  title={{Effect of language experience on the categorical perception of Cantonese vowel duration}},
  year=2011,
  booktitle={Proc. Interspeech 2011},
  pages={169--172},
  doi={10.21437/Interspeech.2011-74}
}