Temporal Properties of Tones

Production data have shown that in addition to F0 differences，tones may maintain consistent temporal differences.Mandarin tones differ in terms of overall duration.Tones 2 and 3 tend to be the longest，and tone 4 the shortest.The relative duration of any tone may change as a function of position in the sentence，however，Nordenhake and Svantesson(1983)showed that overall duration differences between tones 2 and 3 in Mandarin are perceptually relevant in that stimulus ambiguity between tones 2 and 3 was identified more often as tone 3 when they were lengthened.In addition to overall duration，the temporal location of the turning point has been evaluated as a primary cue to the distinction between tones 2 and 3(Jongman et al.，2006).

Amplitude

In addition to F0 and duration，studies have also investigated amplitude and its perceptual relevance in tone perception.Chuang et al.(1972)showed that tone 4 has the highest overall amplitude while tone 3 has the lowest and suggested that F0 is the predominant cue，while duration and amplitude manipulations have little effect on tone perception(Jongman et al.，2006).

Pitch Range

A pitch range is the area between a speaker’s highest and lowest F0.Pitch heights between men and women are different.One speaker’s high pitches，when pronouncing single-and double-syllable words，also vary.On average when pronouncing“mā，má，mǎ，mà”，men’s pitch range is between 100～220Hz while women’s is 140～300Hz（吴宗济，1992）.

An acoustic study was conducted to compare the pitch range of four English-speaking subjects and four Mandarin Chinese-speaking subjects.This study found that the average pitch range of the four Chinese speakers was at least 1.5 times wider than that of the four English-speaking subjects when they spoke their native languages.When the four English-speaking subjects spoke Chinese，their pitch range increased substantially，although not to the extent of the Chinese speakers(Chen，1974).Chen concludes that native English speakers need to increase their pitch ranges of at least 150%if they want to sound more Chinese.Research on Mandarin lexical tones observes that the relationship of tones to each other within a speaker’s own pitch range is more important(Gandour，1994)，but the study did not provide information on the English speakers’pitch boundaries(both the highest and lowest pitches).Charles Miracle’s findings somewhat contrast Chen’s by claiming there were no obvious pitch range discrepancies between the two groups in his studies of ten American students and three Chinese native speakers(Miracle，1989).