Sonorant onset pitch as a perceptual cue of lexical tones in Mandarin

Lexical tone identification requires a number of secondary cues, when main tonal contours are unavailable. In this article, we examine Mandarin native speakers' ability to identify lexical tones by extracting tonal information from sonorant onset pitch (onset contours) on syllable-initial nasals ranging from 50 to 70 ms in duration. In experiments I and II we test speakers' ability to identify lexical tones in a second syllable with and without onset contours in isolation (experiment I) and in a sentential context (experiment II). The results indicate that speakers can identify lexical tones with short distinctive onset contour patterns,they also indicate that misperception of tones 213 and 24 are common. Furthermore, in experiment III, we test whether onset contours in a following syllable can be utilized by listeners in tone identification. We find that onset contours in the following syllable also contribute to the identification of the target lexical tones. The conclusions are twofold: (1) Mandarin lexical tones can be identified with onset contours; (2) tonal domain must be extended to include not just typical cues of tones but also coarticulated tonal patterns.