Revisiting the nature and the context of T4 alternations: insights from disyllabic, trisyllabic and quadrisyllabic word/digit productions in Taiwan Mandarin.

The tone values of a Tone 4 (T4) syllable are conventionally assumed to change from '51' to '53' when the syllable is followed by another T4 syllable in Mandarin Chinese. Literature focusing on T4 alternation is still inconclusive regarding the contexts for the alternations and whether the phenomenon should be better categorized as tone sandhi (i.e.

On the Relationship between Speech Intelligibility and Fluency Indicators among English-Speaking Individuals with Parkinson's Diseases.

The purpose of the study is to investigate how much of variance in Parkinson's Disease (PD) individuals' speech intelligibility could be predicted by seven speech fluency indicators (i.e., , , , , , and ).

Consonantal Landmarks as Predictors of Dysarthria among English-Speaking Adults with Cerebral Palsy.

The current study explored the possibility that the consonantal landmarks served as predictors of dysarthric speech produced by English-speaking adults with cerebral palsy (CP). Additionally, the relationship between the perceptual severity of dysarthric speech and the consonantal landmarks was explored. The analyses included 210 sentences from the TORGO database produced by seven English-speaking CP speakers with dysarthria and seven typically developing controls matched in age and gender.

On the Relationship between Intrinsic Saliency and Implicit Learning of Apologetic Strategies: The Case of Taiwanese EFL Learners.

The current study explored the relationship between the intrinsic saliency of apologetic strategies and the effects of implicit learning. Seventeen Taiwanese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners with intermediate proficiency participated in the experiment with a pretest on apology in the first week, a noticing session in the second week and a posttest in the third week. The results from the noticing session indicated that providing reasons (e.

A First Step toward the Clinical Application of Landmark-Based Acoustic Analysis in Child Mandarin.

As an initial step for the clinical application of landmark-based acoustic analysis in child Mandarin, the study quantified the developmental trajectories of consonants produced by four-to-seven-year-old children who acquired Taiwanese Mandarin as their first language. The results from a total of 80 children (20 in each age group, with gender balanced) indicated that younger age groups produced more + landmark features than seven-year-olds did, showing that the development of obstruents was not completed by the age of six. A multiple regression showed that the participants' speech intelligibility scores could be predicted by landmark features.

Fricative productions of Mandarin-speaking children with cerebral palsy: the case of five-year-olds.

This study aimed at improving the understanding of speech characteristics of fricatives produced by five-year-old Mandarin-acquiring children with cerebral palsy (CP). Productions from nine CP children and nine gender-and-age-matched typically developing (TD) children were collected and analyzed. Results from transcription indicated that the CP group had lower production accuracy rates for all the five fricatives in Mandarin Chinese.

Comprehending conjunctive entailment of disjunction among individuals with Asperger syndrome.

Although individuals with Asperger syndrome (AS) are often described to be semantic-pragmatic disordered, it is still unclear to what extent their semantic comprehension is impaired. The primary goal of this study is to understand the sentence comprehension of adults with AS by investigating their reading processes of sentences involving the conjunctive entailment of disjunction. More specifically, their on-line processes of reading globally ambiguous sentences containing 'or' in Mandarin Chinese, which can be understood as either a conjunction or a disjunction in simple negative statements, were recorded.

Modality and children's scope understanding.

This study intends to shed light on the inconclusive argument pertaining to children's acquisition of logical form (LF) operation. Specifically, we examined children's interpretations of sentences with the ambiguous modal verb yinggai 'should,' like 'Xiaohua yinggai shangchuang shuijiao le', whose meanings depend on the landing sites of yinggai at LF (root interpretation: Xiaohua is obligated to go to bed now. epistemic interpretation: It is the case that Xiaohua has gone to bed.