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Accounting for Lexical Tones When Modeling Phonological Distance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Youngah Do  and
Ryan Ka Yau Lai
Youngah Do*
Affiliation:
The University of Hong Kong
Ryan Ka Yau Lai*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara
*
Do, Room 918, Run Run Shaw Tower Centennial Campus Department of Linguistics The University of Hong Kong Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, [youngah@hku.hk]
[kayaulai@umail.ucsb.edu]
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Abstract

Methods of quantifying distance between sound sequences are known as phonological distance measures. Despite the wide application across subfields, phonological distance has been calculated mainly with features related to consonants and vowels. This research report establishes new measurements of phonological distance that incorporate lexical tone through experimental approaches and modeling, using Hong Kong Cantonese as a case study. Results show correspondences between the experimental data and predictions from information-theoretic measures, including entropy measures and functional load, suggesting that lexical components which play a more crucial role in phonological distance judgments are lexically less predictable as well. Implications for phonological distance measures are discussed.

Keywords

phonological distancetoneBayesian modelingentropy measurefunctional loadCantonese

Information

Type
Research Report
Information
Language , Volume 97 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. e39 - e67
Copyright
Copyright © 2021 Linguistic Society of America

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Footnotes

*

An early version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Computation in Linguistics (SCiL) in 2019. In addition to that audience, we thank Language referees and editors for their great help in improving the paper. Many thanks to Diana Archangeli, Adam Albright, and Arthur Lewis Thompson for helpful questions and comments. This project was supported by The University of Hong Kong's Seed Fund for Basic Research 201611159006, awarded to the first author. Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to the first author.

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