Resolving temporary syntactic ambiguity by prosodic devices in Mandarin: An acoustic study
一个探讨利用节律来解决语法误解的普通话声学实验
Ivan Chow 周允文

Abstract 摘要
An acoustic study was conducted to investigate the prosodic devices used by Mandarin speakers to resolve temporary syntactic ambiguity in speech production and perception. It was set in the fields of phonology and experimental phonetics – the study of the manner in which the relationship between phonological units at various levels affects the production of the combined string in the spoken form; and the physical and mathematical measurement of the spoken language in experimental conditions. Two separate groups of native Mandarin speakers were asked to read and listen to specially designed syntactically ambiguous sentences with two possible interpretations. Sequences of homophonous syllables were embedded in test sentences within which the interpretations were derived by placing prosodic boundaries at different syntactically motivated locations. According to two different syntactic structures imposed on the sequences, speakers were asked to disambiguate the sentences by conveying and recognizing the prosodic boundaries. Experimental results showed that, in addition to pauses and pre-boundary lengthening, pitch reset (a melodic juncture marker) was also an effective device for the resolution of temporary syntactic ambiguity in both speech production and perception. However, the quantitative identity of the prosodic foot (disyllabicity or trisyllabicity) was not a significant factor in the parsing process.

这个声学实验的目的，是要探讨说话的人怎样利用节奏和音高的变化来澄清普通话语法上的误解。参加者全部都以普通话为母语。他们向录音机大声读出八对测试的句子。每句都由六个读音和声调相同的字组成。但是如果将节律的停顿放在不同的位置，句子的分段就不一样，意思也完全改变了。在每句测试句子前都有一个说明上下文关系的段落来提示读者测试句子的本意。及后，作者利用这些录音向另一班听众做了一个聆听测验。听众在听过句子之后，需要在答案纸上选择他认为听见的句子。跟据说话和聆听测验的结果，作者提出了以下两个推论：一、除了停延之外,高的调整也是用来传达测试句子分段结构的重要声学讯号。二、汉语中大多数以双音节组成节律词的倾向并没有影响句子理解的思维过程。

Subject Keywords 关键词

Mandarin 普通话 Prosody 节律学 Syntactic ambiguity resolution 句法含糊的辩释 Pitch reset 声调重整 Preboundary lengthening 断句前音节的演唱

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