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      Unmerging the sibilant merger among speakers of Taiwan Mandarin

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      Laboratory Phonology
      Open Library of the Humanities

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          Abstract

          This study presents empirical evidence from read versus interactive speech to shed light on the nature of the alveolar-retroflex sibilant merger by young speakers of Taiwan Mandarin (TM). TM speakers often merge the two sibilants through deretroflexion of the retroflex category. The results of the reading task showed that the variation is on a full continuum, from a complete merger to clear contrasts, and the merger is more prevalent among male speakers, demonstrating the impact of the social stigma associated with the merger. However, the results of the interactive task demonstrated that speakers who merged the contrast produced the retroflex sounds as distinct from their alveolar counterparts, revealing hidden structures in the mental lexicon. The mismatch between the abstract phonological knowledge and actual implementation in production suggests that the exposure to phonological systems of other speakers, especially those who make clear distinctions, has led to the incorporation of discrete categories into the phonological knowledge of the merged speakers. These findings suggest that large individual variation in the early stages of sound change may provide evidence for possible categories in a given language for language learners; however, their implementation may be further modulated by social as well as other phonetic factors.

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          Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Usinglme4

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            Bayesian t tests for accepting and rejecting the null hypothesis.

            Progress in science often comes from discovering invariances in relationships among variables; these invariances often correspond to null hypotheses. As is commonly known, it is not possible to state evidence for the null hypothesis in conventional significance testing. Here we highlight a Bayes factor alternative to the conventional t test that will allow researchers to express preference for either the null hypothesis or the alternative. The Bayes factor has a natural and straightforward interpretation, is based on reasonable assumptions, and has better properties than other methods of inference that have been advocated in the psychological literature. To facilitate use of the Bayes factor, we provide an easy-to-use, Web-based program that performs the necessary calculations.
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              The Social Motivation of a Sound Change

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Laboratory Phonology
                Open Library of the Humanities
                1868-6354
                February 9 2022
                May 4 2022
                : 13
                : 1
                Affiliations
                [1 ]National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
                Article
                10.16995/labphon.6446
                152cb400-7010-4569-ac75-9496bedc4d11
                © 2022

                https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

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