Speaker: Boer Fu (MIT)
Title: Mandarin Glide Segmentation: A Language Game Experiment
Time: Monday, February 27th, 5pm – 6:30pm
Abstract: The acquisition of a phonological grammar requires the segmentation of audio input into individual consonants and vowels as a first step. Segmentation is often taken as a given in the study of alphabetical languages, but triggers much debate in Mandarin phonology, especially around the prenuclear glide G in the syllable template CGVX (e.g. [j] in [ɕjɑŋ] ‘fragrance’). Some scholars treat the glide as an independent segment (e.g. Lin 1989). Others claim it is a secondary articulation of the onset (e.g. Duanmu 2007). Still others argue it is nothing more than a natural CV transition (e.g. Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996). These proposals for glide segmentation assume uniform segmentation among Mandarin speakers. I present a language game experiment that shows there is much speaker variation in glide segmentation. The language game is based on Chinese fanqie secret languages (see Chao 1931). In the experiment, Mandarin speakers are asked to swap the onsets of a disyllabic word, in order to encode it as a secret message. For example, [kʰa fej] ‘coffee’ is encoded as [fa kʰej]. What a speaker chooses to do with the glide can inform us of their segmentation of the sound.