音段與超音段在詞彙選擇上之角色-以台灣華語為例

The role of segmental and suprasegmental information in Mandarin lexical selection

王㻑媛(Chi-Yuan Wang)

指導教授 ： 賴郁雯

國立交通大學/人文社會學院/外國語文學系外國文學與語言學研究所/碩士(2020年)

摘要

Nesper 等人(2003)曾提出，在部分語言之中，輔音與元音有(部分)分工現象假說 (partial)Division of labor hypothesis之現象；意即輔音負責詞彙，元音負責韻律階層的辨識及特定句法結構具體性質的辨識。由此可推斷元音和輔音在語言處理(language processing)中扮演的角色可能不同。此外，Goldsmith (1976)指出語言中音段(segment)之元音及輔音的處理是在不同階層進行。前人使用採用「口語字重構」(Word Reconstruction Task)(Van Ooijen, 1996) 測試輔音、元音及聲調之偏好現象在英語等語言中的研究指出 (Cutler et al., 2000; Nespor et al., 2003; Van Ooijen, 1996)發現語言處理時對於此二語音元素存在有時序上(temporal)和偏好(bias)。
本研究以有聲調元素的台灣華語為研究標的，探討母語使用人在進行輔音、元音及聲調三元素之語言處理(language processing)是否有特別偏好之現象，聲調此一超音段元素的加入會如何影響語言處理之偏好。研究方法為30 位台灣華語受試者聽到母語中不存在的字(non-words)，依照實驗給予的限制提示，將其重新建構成該語言中真實存在的字；例如：以改變聲調之方式重構假字 su3 以產出真字， 例: su4「塑」；若限制以改變元音之方式重構，則可改變[u]以產出真字，例: sa3「撒」。正確率的定義為受試者依實驗者指示轉換所應轉換之元素的表現。
實驗結果以變異數統計分析，結果指出在限制轉換輔音時的正確率最高，限制聲調轉換正確率居中，限制轉換元音時的正確率最低。多數的台灣華語母語使用者在轉換元音時，相較於輔音較為困難，由此可知，在台灣華語中，元音為不容置換之元素，故可將台灣華語歸類為元音偏好之語言。
本研究推測限制輔音偏好時的表現最佳有兩個可能:一、本實驗在限制僅能轉換輔音的組別之刺激項較容易轉換；二、輔音相同的發音方式或部位，在轉換時，相對容易。如此在做轉換時的正確率便較高。
本研究提供聲調語言中少有的元音輔音及聲調的整體語音處理研究，與中國華語相較發現存在極大差異，雖然使用刺激項不同，但兩者之間所存在的語音音韻差異是否導致此一分歧，值得學界進行進一步研究。

關鍵字

華語 ； 語言處理 ； 元音 ； 輔音 ； 聲調

並列摘要

The present study investigates the weighting of consonant, vowel and tone during Mandarin syllable processing. Previous studies suggested that consonants and vowels belong to different tiers during language processing. Nespor et al. (2003) stated that “there is a (partial) division of labour between vowels and consonants.” They further suggest consonants and vowels serve different roles in language processing: consonants are more essential on the lexical level and vowels on prosody.
This thesis tested Taiwan Mandarin speakers’ preference in constructing a real word from a nonword by changing its consonant, vowel, or tone, using a Word Reconstruction Task (Ooijen 1996), to evaluate the weighting of consonants, vowels, and tones in processing Mandarin.
With tone serving both the lexical and prosodic roles in the language, what would be the preference among these three components? In the experiment the participants were asked to listen to a nonword, and then to make one alteration on either the consonant, the vowel, or the tone to reconstruct a real word: e.g., an Chinese nonword su3, could be changed either by replacing the tone to create su4 (“plastic”) or the vowel to reconstruct sa3(“spread”). The accuracy means the participants altered the feature in correct way, such as replacing consonant in consonant condition.
The results indicated that the participants tend to have the highest accuracy in the condition of Consonant alteration while vowel replacement received the lowest accuracy rate.
Contrary to what was found in the literature (Cutler et al., 2000; Nespor et al., 2003; Van Ooijen, 1996), the results showed a vowel-biased scheme in Mandarin which demands a closer look at the processing of consonant, vowel along with tone.
We attribute the significant higher accuracy rate of consonant to two reasons: 1) the set of the stimuli in current study makes it a more susceptible target for the reconstruction, 2) the participants may adopt similarity strategy to pick consonants with similar manners/place of articulation (such as /ʂ/ for /s/ and vice versa). This strategy apparently speed up the process. All in all, our study is one of the very first studies to compare the relative weighting of these three components in the same setting.

並列關鍵字

Word reconstruction task ； Mandarin ； bias

參考文獻

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