While the Ganong lexicality effect has been observed for phonemic and tonal categorization, the effects of frequency and markedness are less clear, especially in terms of tonal categorization. In this study, we use Mandarin Chinese to investigate the effects of lexicality, tone frequency and markedness. We examined Mandarin speakers’ tonal categorization of tokens on all possible tonal continua with one end being a word and the other being a tonotactic gap (i.e., an unattested syllable-tone combination). The results of a forced-choice identification experiment showed a general bias against the gap endpoints, with the noted exception of continua involving T4 (X51), the most frequent lexical tone. Specifically, when T4 served as the gap endpoint, no obvious bias against it was observed regardless of its lexical status. Moreover, on the T3–T4 continua, there was an apparent bias against T3 (X214), the tone with the most complex contour, again, regardless of lexicality, suggesting a strong markedness effect. Taken together, the results of this study show the individual effects of lexicality, tone frequency and markedness, as well as their interactions, which contribute to our understanding of tonal categorization in relation to lexical statistics (tone frequency) and phonology (markedness).

The present study seeks to elucidate the nature of first language transfer effects on the perception of English lexical stress in different intonational contexts. Pitch (F0) is one of the acoustic cues to lexical stress in English, but crucially, pitch can only serve as a cue to stress when interpreted within the intonation system of English. In contrast, Mandarin is a tonal language where pitch carries greater functional weight for signaling lexical contrasts. Associating pitch to lexical contrasts, Mandarin listeners might therefore assume a one-to-one relationship between pitch and lexical stress in English. To examine whether Mandarin learners of English make this assumption, the current study tested their stress perception in four different intonations: H*L-L%, L*H-H%, H*H-H%, and L*L-L%, where F0 cues to stress were realized differently in each intonation. The results of the stress identification task showed that Mandarin listeners falsely associated higher F0 with stress and lower F0 with the absence of it, and their performance did not improve as they became increasingly proficient in English. The findings provide corroborating evidence for the Cue-Weighting Transfer Hypothesis by showing that the use of a suprasegmental cue can transfer from one phonological category (tones) to another (stress).