Effects of Aspiration on Tone Production and Perception in Standard Chinese

Numerous studies reported that the onset fundamental frequency (i.e., onset f0) was usually affected by the voicing characteristics of preceding consonants in speech production. For instance, onset f0 following voiceless stops was usually higher than that following voiced stops. With regards to Standard Chinese, syllable-initial stop consonants could be classified into two groups according to the aspiration contrast, voiceless aspirated and voiceless unaspirated. The aspiration contrast is distinctive and plays an important role in distinguishing lexical meanings. Using acoustic analysis of f0 realization and categorical perception paradigm, the study aims to investigate the effect on the production and perception of lexical tones from consonants’ aspiration in Standard Chinese. Production results showed that the onset f0 following aspirated consonants was higher than that following unaspirated syllables. Moreover, the magnitude varied with lexical tones, tone 1 and tone 4 had larger differences in onset f0 than tone 2 and tone 3. Results of perception tests showed that the aspiration contrast enhanced the perceptual salience between high and low tones. Specifically, compared with unaspirated syllables, tones carried by aspirated syllables tended to be perceived as lower tones.