Production Evidence for the Perceptual Asymmetry of Mandarin Question and Statement Intonations

The lack of invariant mapping between prosodic cues and category of intended meaning frequently occurs in prosody perception. In Mandarin, previous studies have shown that identifying questions is more difficult when the final tone is rising (T2) than when it is falling (T4). This study investigates the production mechanisms underlying this perceptual asymmetry. Question and statement intonations ending in T2 and T4 were elicited from eight female native speakers of Mandarin. We analyzed joint F0-duration covariation patterns of the whole utterance and prosodic cue distributions of the final syllable. The results revealed substantial tone-dependent differences in the use of F0 range and duration for question-statement distinction, particularly at the sentence end. Most speakers distinguished questions and statements ending in T2 by mean F0 and F0 range, whereas questions and statements ending in T4 were clearly distinguished by mean F0 and duration. This study also highlights the role of speaker-specific encoding strategies and prosodic cue variability in shaping prosodic perception.