Tonal carryover assimilation, whereby a tone is assimilated to the preceding one, is conditioned by prosodic boundaries in a way suggesting that its presence may signal continuity or lack of a boundary. Its possibility as a speech segmentation cue was investigated in two artificial language (AL) learning experiments. Mandarin-speaking listeners identified the “words” of a three-tone AL (e.g., [pé.tī.kù]) after listening to six long speech streams in which the words were repeated continuously without pauses. The first experiment revealed that segmentation was disrupted in an “incongruent-cues” condition where tonal carryover assimilation occurred across AL word boundaries and conflicted with statistical regularities in the speech streams. Segmentation was neither facilitated nor inhibited in a “congruent-cues” condition where tonal carryover assimilation occurred only within the AL words in 27% of the repetitions and never across word boundaries. A null effect was again found for the congruent-cues condition of the second experiment, where all AL word repetitions carried tonal carryover assimilation. These findings show that tonal carryover assimilation is exploited to resolve segmentation problems when cues conflict. Its null effect in the congruent-cues conditions might be linked to cue redundancy and suggest that it is weighted low in the segmentation cue hierarchy.

中文翻译：

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在人工语言语音分割中使用声调协调：一项针对普通话听众的研究

音调延续同化，即一个音调与前一个音调同化，受韵律边界的影响，这表明它的存在可能表示连续性或缺乏边界。在两个人工语言 (AL) 学习实验中研究了它作为语音分割提示的可能性。讲普通话的听众在听了六个长语音流（其中单词连续重复而没有停顿）后，识别出三声 AL（例如，[pé.tī.kù]）的“单词”。第一个实验表明，分割在“不一致的线索”条件下被打乱，其中音调携带同化发生在 AL 单词边界上，并与语音流中的统计规律相冲突。在“一致提示”条件下，分割既没有促进也没有抑制，其中 27% 的重复中仅在 AL 单词中发生音调携带同化，并且从未跨越单词边界。对于第二个实验的全等线索条件，再次发现无效效应，其中所有 AL 单词重复都带有音调携带同化。这些发现表明，当提示冲突时，色调残留同化被用来解决分割问题。它在全等线索条件下的无效效应可能与线索冗余有关，并表明它在分割线索层次结构中的权重较低。其中所有 AL 单词重复都带有音调残留同化。这些发现表明，当提示冲突时，色调残留同化被用来解决分割问题。它在全等线索条件下的无效效应可能与线索冗余有关，并表明它在分割线索层次结构中的权重较低。其中所有 AL 单词重复都带有音调残留同化。这些发现表明，当提示冲突时，色调残留同化被用来解决分割问题。它在全等线索条件下的无效效应可能与线索冗余有关，并表明它在分割线索层次结构中的权重较低。