Speech production varies among individuals, having an effect on both segments (vowels and consonants) and suprasegmental properties (prosody). Previous literature has shown that listeners can adapt...Show moreSpeech production varies among individuals, having an effect on both segments (vowels and consonants) and suprasegmental properties (prosody). Previous literature has shown that listeners can adapt to variability in the speech production of segments. This study explores whether listeners can also adapt to variability in the production of suprasegments as lexical tones. Our experiment demonstrates a selective adaptation effect in lexical tone perception: repeatedly hearing Mandarin tone1 syllables biased perception of a subsequent tone continuum towards more tone2 responses. Moreover, the selective adaptation effects generalize to novel syllables, especially with onsets dif- ferent from the ones during the exposure. These findings demonstrate that listeners adapt flexibly to variability in the suprasegmental properties of speech, enhancing our understanding of the role of listener adaptation in speech perception.Show less
The present study aims to investigate the use of Japanese loanwords in Mandarin Chinese-speaking Otaku communities by combining database observation with three elicitation tasks: 1) a questionnaire...Show moreThe present study aims to investigate the use of Japanese loanwords in Mandarin Chinese-speaking Otaku communities by combining database observation with three elicitation tasks: 1) a questionnaire on knowledge and using circumstances of the loans, 2) a set of read-aloud tasks following the questionnaire in Task 1 for tonal assignment strategies, and 3) a timed loanword-identification task. Linguistic dimensions of the data are carefully investigated, and variations in different individuals’ uses are also observed. Based on these findings, the role of misperception and identity in tonal adaptation, the limbo between code switching and lexical borrowing, as well as the role of orthographic representations are reflected on.Show less
Time is an invisible construct and languages express its passage in different ways. This thesis focusses on deictic spatio-temporal expressions in Mandarin Chinese and Korean, with special...Show moreTime is an invisible construct and languages express its passage in different ways. This thesis focusses on deictic spatio-temporal expressions in Mandarin Chinese and Korean, with special attention given to expressions containing ‘up’, ‘down’, ‘front’ and ‘back’. It endeavours to see if Mandarin Chinese has influenced Korean in the domain of spatio-temporal expressions. On the grounds of linguistic theories on (spatio-temporal) deixis and conceptual metaphors and by taking into account historical linguistic and cultural contact between the regions nowadays called the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea, this thesis compares modern (spatio-)temporal expressions in both Mandarin Chinese and Korean to conclude that there has been influence.Show less
This thesis is about the expression of ingressive aspect: language elements that focus on the beginning of a situation. The aim is to conduct a fine-grained analysis and comparison of the aspectual...Show moreThis thesis is about the expression of ingressive aspect: language elements that focus on the beginning of a situation. The aim is to conduct a fine-grained analysis and comparison of the aspectual semantics of three ‘manifestations of ingressivity’: the ingressive suffix -qilai起來 in Mandarin and the ingressive adverbs chū初 and shǐ始 from pre-Tang Chinese. The comparison reveals both similarities and differences. First, the three ingressive markers share a basic conceptual structure consisting of [+BEGIN] and [+focusBEGIN], but -qilai 起來 additionally consists of the optional component [±STAND UP] due to limited semantic bleaching of the source structure’s lexical semantics, i.e. the verb qǐlai 起來 ‘to stand up’. This explains the fact that Stage Level States selecting -qilai起來 may shift optionally to Activities, as metaphorical extensions of ‘standing up’ (i.e. ‘increase’) license dynamic interpretations. This same optionality may be explained for the pre-Tang Chinese adverbs through the causative potential of the predicate, which likewise optionally entails ‘increasing’. Second, combinatory possibilities can be described for shǐ始 without additional restrictions, while those of -qilai起來 and chū初 can be accounted for with one disjunctive rule each: -qilal起來 requires the predicate to be durative, atelic, or both; chū初 requires it to be dynamic-durative, telic, or both. In terms of ingressive subtypes, this means that chū初 is typically inceptive, -qilai起來 is more inceptive than inchoative, and shǐ始 is actually ingressive in that inceptive and inchoative interpretations are equally available.Show less
