The effect of breathy voice on tone identification by listeners of different ages in Suzhou Wu Chinese

Suzhou Wu Chinese has undergone a transphonologization of a voicing contrast in initial consonants to a tone contrast. In consequence, the tone system has split into two registers, in which the high register tones are higher in pitch and modal voiced, whilst the low register tones are lower in pitch and breathy voiced. Our previous studies have found that breathy voice in the low register tones is disappearing in younger speakers’ production. This finding motivated us to investigate the effect of breathy voice on tone identification across age groups. Participants from three age groups completed a tone identification experiment. Stimuli were constructed based on natural tokens produced by a middle-aged female speaker and an older female speaker. The manipulation of phonation was accomplished by using the base syllables of both high and low register tones, for both unchecked (T1 vs. T2) and checked (T7 vs. T8) tone pairs. The results showed that breathy voice is still used by younger listeners in their perception and its effect on their tone identification is similar to that for older and middle-aged listeners. Moreover, the effect of breathy voice is modulated by social indexical factors (i.e., talker voice). The implications of the results for the origin of the loss of breathy voice in Suzhou Wu and the mechanism of sound change are discussed.