title: Neural Correlates of Indicators of Sound Change in Cantonese: Evidence from Cortical and Subcortical Processes.
abstract: Across time, languages undergo changes in phonetic, syntactic, and semantic dimensions. Social, cognitive, and cultural factors contribute to sound change, a phenomenon in which the phonetics of a language undergo changes over time. Individuals who misperceive and produce speech in a slightly divergent manner (calledinnovators) contribute to variability in the society, eventually leading to sound change. However, the cause of variability in these individuals is still unknown. In this study, we examined whether such misperceptions are represented in neural processes of the auditory system. We investigated behavioral, subcortical (via FFR), and cortical (via P300) manifestations of sound change processing in Cantonese, a Chinese language in which several lexical tones are merging. Across the merging categories, we observed a similar gradation of speech perception abilities in both behavior and the brain (subcortical and cortical processes). Further, we also found that behavioral evidence of tone merging correlated with subjects' encoding at the subcortical and cortical levels. These findings indicate that tone-merger categories, that are indicators of sound change in Cantonese, are represented neurophysiologically with high fidelity. Using our results, we speculate thatinnovatorsencode speech in a slightly deviant neurophysiological manner, and thus produce speech divergently that eventually spreads across the community and contributes to sound change.
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Akshay R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Maggu
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading Reading, UK.
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University Penrith, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Antoniou
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, The Chinese University of Hong KongHong Kong, China; Brain and Mind Institute, The Chinese University of Hong KongHong Kong, China; The Chinese University of Hong Kong-Utrecht University Joint Center for Language, Mind and BrainHong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Patrick C M
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Wong
keywords: brainstem encoding; individual variability; language change; neurophysiology; phonetics