Asymmetric mental representations and processing of pitch contrasts across languages

• Project/Area Number: 23K12149
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 02060:Linguistics-related
• Research Institution: Hokkaido University
• Principal Investigator: 浅野 友紀 北海道大学, メディア・コミュニケーション研究院, 准教授 (70770387)
• Project Period (FY): 2023-04-01 – 2025-03-31
• Project Status: Granted (Fiscal Year 2023)
• Budget Amount: ¥3,380,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥780,000); Fiscal Year 2024: ¥1,690,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000、Indirect Cost: ¥390,000); Fiscal Year 2023: ¥1,690,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000、Indirect Cost: ¥390,000)
• Keywords: プロソディ / 心的表象 / 心理言語学 / 非対称性 / ピッチ

Outline of Research at the Start

Mental representations of phonemic contrasts have been claimed to be asymmetric with a combination between specified and underspecified features. This project investigates asymmetries in mental representations and processing of lexical pitch contrasts focusing on Tokyo Japanese (a pitch-accent language), compared to Mandarin Chinese (a tone language) and German (an intonation language). Specification vs. underspecification of lexical prosody will be discussed to incorporate the findings of this project into current spoken-word recognition models, speech technology and language didactics.