Chapter 4 Production and Perception of Tones in Deori
4.7 Tone perception
4.7.4 Results
4.7.4.1 Identification test
The identification test results show speakers’ difficulty in identifying the tonal categories. At first, the responses of monosyllabic words will be discussed followed by a discussion on the responses of disyllabic words.
Perception of li “necklace_low tone/heavy_high tone”
The identification test results show that stimuli li is perceived correctly by all speakers across generations, except SP 7 (younger generation). SP 7 identified the low tone stimuli li “necklace”
as high tone li “heavy” 80% of the times and high tone stimuli li “heavy” as low tone li
“necklace” 60% of the times as can be seen in the figures below.
48As pointed out by the examiner on using nonce words in the perception experiment, we believe nonce words cannot be taken into consideration because Deori does not have an abundance of lexically contrastive tonal pairs. Our only way to understand the existence of remnant tonal distinctions was to use the contrastive pairs. We had doubts whether nonce pairs would be recognized at all, since in the existing pairs itself we had variable results (tone reversal, varying f0 pattern, tone overlap).
Figure 4.29: Younger and older generation speakers’ perception of /li/ low tone stimuli
Figure 4.30: Younger and older generation speakers’ perception of /li/ high tone stimuli While in production test two way tonal contrasts in li was maintained by both the generation, in perception test SP 7 had perceptual difficulty in perceiving the exact tonal category.
Perception of tʃi ‘blood_low tone/to make_high tone’
Figure 4.31 shows that among younger generation speakers, SP 6, SP 7, and SP 8 perceived the low tone stimuli (tʃi_blood) as high tone (tʃi_to make) 60%, 80%, and 80% of the times respectively, whereas SP 9 and SP 10 completely reversed the low tone (tʃi_blood) as high tone (tʃi_to make). The responses of SP 9 and SP 10 show that low tone stimuli tʃi_blood is identified as tʃi_to make. On the contrary, older generation speakers rightly identified the low tone stimuli and associated the right meaning to the respective tonal category.
Figure 4.31:Younger and older generation speakers’ perception of /tʃi/ low tone stimuli
Figure 4.32: Younger and older generation speakers’ perception of /tʃi/ high tone stimuli Figure 4.32 shows the response of high tone stimuli. Similar to low tone stimuli, in the high tone stimuli SP 6, SP 7, SP 8, and SP 10 had perceptual difficulty in identifying the tonal categories and SP 9 completely reversed the two tonal categories, i.e identified the high tone as low tone.
Among older generation speakers, SP 11, SP 12, SP 13, and SP 15 identified the right meaning of the high tone stimuli tʃi as “to make” without any perceptual difficulty, whereas SP 14 have perceptual difficulty and identified the high tone stimuli as the low tone stimuli 20% of the times.
Perception of kɔ ‘come_low tone/pluck_high tone’
The response for kɔ ‘come/pluck’ shows that younger speakers could not identify the two tonal categories correctly. They identified the low tone as high tone and high tone as low tone. This is consistent with their inability to produce the two tonal categories distinctively. However, older generation speakers could rightly identify the two tonal categories which show that older generation speakers have preserved the underlying tonal distinctions of the lexical item kɔ
‘come/pluck’.
Figure 4.33: Younger and older generation speakers’ perception of /kɔ/ low tone stimuli
Figure 4.34: Younger and older generation speakers’ perception of /kɔ/ high tone stimuli
Perception of kiɹi ‘to furnish with heddles_low tone/poor_high tone’
Production test results show that both the generation maintains tonal distinctions in kiɹi, however, perception test results show that among younger generation participants, SP 8 and SP 10 had difficulty in perceiving the tonal categories of kiɹi and identifies the low tone stimuli as high tone stimuli 40% and 60% of the times respectively and high tone stimuli as low tone stimuli 60% and 50% of the times.
Figure 4.35:Younger and older generation speakers’ perception of /kiɹi/ low tone stimuli
Figure 4.36:Younger and older generation speakers’ perception of /kiɹi/ high tone stimuli Tone reversal which was evident only in monosyllabic words in the production experiment (as reported in § 4.6.6.1), is also evident in disyllabic words in perception experiment. Older generation speakers had no difficulty in identifying the exact meaning of kiɹi.
Perception of tʃ “fish_low tone/ wife of younger brother_high tone”
Production test results show that tonal contrasts in tʃ is maintained by older generation speakers (Mahanta et al, 2017), but not maintained by younger generation speakers. Perception test results show that there is tone reversal in tʃ , unlike production test. Younger generation speakers had perceptual difficulty and identified the high tone stimuli as low tone and vice-versa.
On the other hand, older generation speakers had no perceptual difficulty in identifying the tonal category of tʃ .
Figure 4.37: Younger and older generation speakers’ perception of /tʃ ɑ / low tone stimuli
Figure 4.38: Younger and older generation speakers’ perception of /tʃ ɑ / high tone stimuli In Figure 4.37, it can be seen that older generation speakers perceived the low tone stimuli as low tone whereas younger generation speakers perceived the low tone stimuli as high tone and vice-versa. Similarly, in Figure 4.38, while older generation speakers could rightly perceive the
exact tonal category of the stimuli, younger generation speakers had difficulty in identifying the tonal categories. They identified the high tone stimuli as low tone and vice-versa.