Probabilistic Modeling of Tone Perception: Autosegmental "targets" are insufficient

Authors

  • Deepti Ramadoss Johns Hopkins University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3765/exabs.v0i0.558

Abstract

Existing tone perception models simply match f0-value strings of stimuli to category templates. Here we propose probabilistic models of Thai tone perception motivated by phonological theory: tone categories are defined by High(H) and Low(L) target combinations associated with syllable moras. Category specific prior probability distributions are computed over these target (f0-value) sets; then, the most likely category of any given stimulus is computed. Probabilities computed by Model 1 are over targets (accuracy: 36.36%); Model 2 are over slopes between targets (accuracy: 63.6%). Overall, this research shows that phonological representations of a single cue are insufficient to account for tone perception.

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Published

2011-07-06