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Japanese Psychological Research2015, Volume 57, No. 1, 61–68
Special issue: Speech sounds across languages

doi: 10.1111/jpr.12064

Constructing initial phonology in Mandarin Chinese:
Syllabic or subsyllabic? A masked priming investigation1
RINUS G. VERDONSCHOT* Nagoya University
JUN LAI

Tilburg University

FENG CHEN

Chinese Academy of Sciences

KATSUO TAMAOKA

Nagoya University

NIELS O. SCHILLER

Leiden University

Abstract: Recent research has put forward the idea that Chinese speech production
is governed by the syllable as the fundamental phonological unit. However, it may bethat onset priming might be more difficult to obtain in Mandarin Chinese. Therefore,
in this study, the degree of overlap between prime and target was increased from C
to CV (i.e., extending beyond the phoneme) as well as whether primes and targets
had an overlapping structure (CV vs. CVN). Subsyllabic priming effects were found(i.e., onset + vowel overlap but not purely onset overlap), contrasting with the claimthat the syllable is the compulsory building block in the initial construction of Mandarin
Chinese phonology.
Key words: fundamental unit, proximate unit, masked priming, language production,
Chinese, psycholinguistics.

Speaking requires access to a language’s phonology. Interestingly, it has been proposed thatthe basic unit to build phonology may differ
between languages (O’Seaghdha, Chen, &Chen, 2010; Verdonschot et al., 2011). Early
evidence for the phoneme as the fundamentalbuilding block to construct phonology was
obtained using the implicit priming paradigm.
Meyer (1990, 1991) showed that while naming a
set of response words (in response to prompt

words) participants took less time to name theresponse words when the onsets overlapped(e.g. dans, dop, deugd) compared with when
they did not overlap (e.g. dans, heks, stoep).
In addition, the effect increased when the overlap increased, but significant priming always
needed the onset to overlap (i.e. rhyme words
such as: melding, branding, scheiding did not
produce significant effects). These results weretaken to indicate that the construction of*Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to: Rinus G. Verdonschot, Graduate School of
Languages and Cultures, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan. (E-mail:rinusverdonschot@gmail.com)
1
This research is supported by a Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) postdoctoral fellowship and Grant-in-Aid for foreign researchers (P12315). This research project was also supported by the Royal
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) through a
China Exchange Program grant (11CPD002).

© 2014 Japanese Psychological Association. Published by Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

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R. G. Verdonschot, J. Lai, F. Chen, K. Tamaoka, and N. O. Schiller

phonology in a language proceeds by incrementally clustering segments into a syllabic metricalframe (WEAVER++; Levelt, Roelofs, &Meyer, 1999). However, using the same paradigm Chen, Chen, and Dell (2002) andO’Seaghdha et al. (2010) did not find significant
priming for Mandarin Chinese when just theonset overlapped. As Mandarin Chinese is atone language (containing four lexically distinctive tones), these authors also ascertained
whether tones by themselves yielded implicit
priming effects (by comparing atonal syllables
and tonal syllables). They found that, althoughsharing of the first syllable plus tone yielded aslightly larger implicit priming effect (compared with sharing the first syllable without thetone), merely sharing the first segment or tone
only (without the syllable) showed no effect.
Essentially, these authors only found priming
when the syllable completely overlapped,leading to the conclusion that the fundamental(or “proximate” in the terms of O’Seaghdha
et al. (2010) unit to initially construct phonology in Mandarin Chinese is the syllable and not
the phoneme. Similarly, using the same paradigm, Kureta, Fushimi, and Tatsumi (2006)
have shown this to be the mora (and notsegment or syllable) in Japanese (see also
Verdonschot et al., 2011).
According to O’Seaghdha et al.’s (2010) proposal (which is directly embedded in the language production theory of Levelt et al., 1999),
languages differ in the size of the phonologicalunits that are directly connected to the lexeme
nodes. These units are to be combined with
their metrical frames and/or tones using a unitto-frame/tone association process that will
eventually lead to a phonologically fully specified word. In languages such as Dutch andEnglish, these fundamental units would be phonemes to be put into metrical frames (Levelt
et al., 1999), for Japanese they would be moras
to be associated with pitch accent (a tonal property; Kureta et al., 2006; Verdonschot et al.,2011), and for Chinese they would be atonalsyllables to be associated with tones (Chenet al., 2002; O’Seaghdha et al., 2010).
It could be argued, however, that the aforementioned results might have been influenced© Japanese Psychological Association 2014.

by the different typologies used in the languages. For example, Dutch and English use analphabet (i.e., a script representing phonemes),
Chinese uses Hanzi (i.e., logographic characters
representing syllables) and Japanese (besides
morphemic kanji) uses scripts representing
moras (i.e., hiragana and katakana). However,when stimuli are represented in a diverging
script (e.g., Japanese moras represented inalphabetic romaji; see Verdonschot et al., 2011;
Experiments 2 and 3) or when spoken prompts
and picture targets are used (e.g., Chen & Chen,
2013), the aforementioned conclusions stillhold. As such, there indeed seems not to be auniversal but rather a divergent proximate unit
to construct phonology amongst languages.
Using a different paradigm, Ferrand, Segui,and Grainger (1996) showed in French that if thewhole first syllable between prime and target
overlapped, more priming was observed compared with when it did not overlap. For instance,
pa.lace (palace, dot denoting the syllable boundary) profited more when it was preceded by a
CV prime, for example, /pa/ compared with a
CVC prime, for example, /pal/, even though thelatter had more overlap in terms of phonemes.
However, subsequent studies have had difficulty
replicating this effect (e.g., Brand, Rey, &Peereman, 2003) and other studies always foundan increasing effect size with more overlap(e.g., Schiller, 1998, 2004). Similar to the study of
Ferrand et al. (1996), Chen, Lin, and Ferrand(2003) using masked priming employed disyllabic target words such as CV.GV (/ba4.ye4/) or
CVG.CVX (/bay4.ley4/), which were precededby two types of primes, that is, CV (/ba3/) or
CVG (/bay3/). However, Chen et al., 2003 did
not include a matched control condition but
only included a “neutral” prime, which consistedof an asterisk (which was excluded for later
analyses, see Chen et al., 2003, p. 111). They
found that when the syllable structure matched(CV-CV.GV, CVG-CVG.CVX;2 the part before
the hyphen (-) denotes the prime and the partafter denotes the target), participants were
2

The part before hyphen (-) denotes the prime (e.g.
/ba/) and the part after denotes the target (e.g.
/ba4.ye4/, a dot denotes a syllable boundary.

Constructing initial phonology in Mandarin Chinese

faster compared with when it did not (CVCVG.CVX, CVG-CV.GX). This occurred eventhough overlap was greater in, for instance, theCVG-CV.GV compared with the CV-CV.GV
condition. Although these are important findings, they do not preclude the potential forsubsyllabic priming of both CV-CVG.CVX
and CVG-CV.GX (although You, Zhang, &Verdonschot, 2012, Experiment 4, werealso unable to find subsyllabic priming for
CV-CVN.CVX and CVN-CV.NX when suitable
control conditions were included).
The current study is likewise concerned withthe size of the phonological unit in Chinese. As
mentioned before, there is evidence that thebasic unit to construct initial phonology inChinese is the syllable and not a subsyllabic
unit (Chen et al., 2002, 2003; O’Seaghdha et al.,2010). However, other studies have contrasted
with these findings, such as Wong and Chen
(2009; see also Qu, Damian, & Kazanina, 2012
for electrophysiological evidence) who found in
Cantonese Chinese using picture naming withsuperimposed distracter words that when pictures overlapped in more than a phoneme (e.g.,target picture of a 星 /sing1/ “star” with superimposed distracters such as 食 /sik6/ “eat” (CVoverlap) and rime overlap distracters such as 境
/ging2/ “boundary” vs. unrelated controls suchas 閣 /gok3/ “cabinet”) that significant facilitation could still be obtained. This led Wong andChen (2009) to conclude that the degree ofoverlap between the target and the distractermay be the determining factor, as subsyllabic
overlap also induces facilitation.
The findings of Wong and Chen (2009) are incontrast with a purely syllable based proximate
unit assumption (e.g., O’Seaghdha et al., 2010).
However, these conflicting results might
have been obtained because a different language (Cantonese vs. Mandarin) and different
paradigm (picture-word inference insteadof implicit priming) were used. Additionally,
Wong and Chen (2009) performed their experiments at the Chinese University of Hong Kong(a highly bilingual environment), so it could be
put forward that their participants’ L2 English
proficiency may have been substantial. That
L2 proficiency may be an important factor

63

can be seen in a recent study by Verdonschot,
Nakayama, Zhang, Tamaoka, and Schiller(2013). These authors recruited highly proficient L1 Mandarin–L2 English bilinguals andusing masked priming were able to show onsetand CV-priming not only in English but undercertain conditions also in Mandarin Chinese.
In light of the discrepancies in the literature
we aim to find out whether or not onset priming
might not simply be more difficult to obtainin Mandarin Chinese and therefore whether
increasing the degree of overlap from C to
CV together with manipulating the structural overlap (particularly for CV-CVN and
CVN-CV prime-target combinations) may also
show significant priming effects in Mandarin (asshown for Cantonese in Wong & Chen, 2009).
To investigate this, we made use of the stimuli
from Verdonschot et al. (2013; Chinese part)but instead of using highly proficient bilinguals
as they did (thereby showing onset priming inboth L2 English and L1 Mandarin), we
recruited monolingual Mandarin Chinese participants to assess whether the absence ofknowledge of a phoneme-based language (e.g.,
English) may change the pattern of results(using identical stimuli). If phonological planning for monolinguals is governed by a syllabic
proximate unit, we should only find significant
priming if the whole syllabic structure overlaps
and not for subsyllabic overlap. If we dofind priming when the syllabic structure does
not match, then this would mean that (at least
when using the masked priming task) initialphonological processing is indeed sensitive tosubsyllabic units (corroborating with Qu et al.,2012 and Wong & Chen, 2009) and we would
need to re-evaluate how exactly priming comesto pass in Chinese speech production.

MethodParticipants
Twenty-four undergraduate students (21female, average age 23.5 ± 1.5 years) participated and were paid approximately US$3.00.
They were randomly taken from Beijing Forestry University, China Agriculture University,© Japanese Psychological Association 2014.

64

R. G. Verdonschot, J. Lai, F. Chen, K. Tamaoka, and N. O. Schiller

and Beijing Science and Technology University
with the prerequisite that they could not speak
English or Japanese. All were native Mandarin
Chinese speakers with normal or corrected-tonormal vision. Participants reported that they
had no Japanese proficiency at all but unavoidably had some (as English is a mandatory
subject at school) limited English proficiency(i.e., average high school grade was 5.7 on a
1–10 scale: 1 = lowest mark, 10 = highest mark).
A self-assessment questionnaire (scale: 1 = very
poor, 10 = very fluent) showed the following
self-assessment scores for four skill categories:
Speaking: 4.7, Writing: 5.8, Reading: 6.1, Listening: 5.0. The approximate time (in hours) theyspent each day (both at the University and intheir private time including music, movies,
internet, etc.) facing English was: Speaking: 0.3,
Writing: 0.3, Reading: 0.7, Listening: 0.4.
StimuliTwenty-four target words were selected (identical to Verdonschot et al., 2013) whereby halfadhered to a CV (e.g. /ba/) and the other half toa CVN (e.g. /ban/) structure. Stimuli were constructed such that the tone (a suprasegmental property of Chinese) always overlapped
between the target and its primes (see the
Appendix). The average log frequency (seeBaayen, 2008) was 5.0 ± 1.5 (Chinese Linguistic
Data Consortium, 2003) and the number ofstrokes was on average 8.0 ± 3.1. Primes wereselected to match structure (S + = same, e.g.,
CV-CV, or S– = different, e.g., CVN-CV) andthe amount of overlap (O + = onset, O++ =onset + vowel, and O– = control). Stimuli were
controlled for log frequency (O + = 4.4 ± 2.1,
O++ = 4.4 ± 2.0, O– = 4.8 ± 1.7, F < 1) andnumber of strokes (O + = 10.0 ± 3.2, O++ =10.4 ± 3.8, O– = 9.6 ± 3.5, F < 1). We also madesure to avoid characters with multiple pronunciations and/or semantic or radical overlap.
DesignThe experiment adopted a 2 (Structure: same,different) × 3 (Overlap: onset, onset + vowel,
control) within-participants design. For
instance, the target 八 /ba1/ “eight” could be
preceded by: (a) same structure onset overlap© Japanese Psychological Association 2014.

prime [S+O+] 逼 /bi1/ “to force,” (b) different
structure onset overlap prime [S-O+] 宾 /bin1/“guest,” (c) same structure onset + vowel
overlap prime [S+O++], 巴 /ba1/ “desire,” (d)different structure onset + vowel overlap prime,[S-O++] 班 /ban1/ “class,” (e) same structure
control prime [S+O-] 趴 /pa1/ “lean, bend over,”and lastly, (f) a different structure control prime[S-O-] 攀 /pan1/ “climb.”
To avoid excessive repetitions, target-prime
combinations were distributed across participants in a Latin-square design such that eachparticipant named each target only three times(instead of 6; i.e., 72 trials overall per participant) although still having encountered allprime types equally often. Each target occurrence was set in one block, resulting in threeblocks in total (with short breaks of 30 s
between each block and warm-up of threeunrelated items per block). The order of targetwords within a block and the block order itself
were randomized for each participant.
Procedure
The experiment was performed using E-Prime
2 Professional Software (Psychology Software
Tools). Participants were seated in a quiet room
approximately 70 cm from a 21-in. CRT computer screen with a refresh rate of 100 Hz.
Naming latencies were measured from target
onset using a voice-key connected to the computer via a PST Serial Response Box.
Each trial involved the following sequence: afixation cross (+) was presented at the center ofthe screen for 1000 ms, followed by a forwardmask (##) for 500 ms; subsequently the prime
was presented for 50 ms, followed by the target
word which disappeared after 2 s or when theparticipants made a vocal response. Primes,
masks, and targets were presented in 28-point
boldfaced Song font. The visual angles of thetarget words were less than 2 deg both horizontally and vertically. Participants were asked
to name the word aloud as quickly and accurately as possible. Following each response,
the experimenter judged whether or not the
response was correct (or whether a voice key
error had occurred). The experiment tookapproximately 10 min in total.

Constructing initial phonology in Mandarin Chinese

65

Table 1 Reaction times and error percentages
Same structure (S+)

Error (%)

Different structure (S–)

Error (%)

520 (55)497 (47)520 (64)

1.0
1.7
1.0

519 (55)511 (55)527 (54)

2.1
2.1
1.7

Onset (O+)
Onset + Vowel (O++)
Control (O–)

Note. Standard deviations are shown in parentheses.

Results
Incorrect responses (e.g., nonintended names),other responses caused by microphone errors,
and reaction times longer than 1200 ms
or shorter than 300 ms (total: 1.4%) were
excluded from further data analysis. The
remaining data were used in subsequentstatistical analyses. As there were few errors(1.6%) equally distributed across conditions, anerror analysis was not performed. Regarding
the naming latencies: a 2 (Structure: same,different) × 3 (Overlap: onset, onset + vowel,
control) repeated measures ANOVA wasemployed. There was no main effect of Structure, F1(1, 23) = 2.54, MSe = 718.1, p = .125,
F2(1, 23) = 1.15, MSe = 492.2, p = .296, minF′(1, 40) < 1. This indicates that there was no
significant naming latency difference fortarget words having a CV or CVN structure.
However, there was a significant effect ofoverlap, F1(2, 46) = 8.27, MSe = 597.0, p < .001,
F2(2, 46) = 16.1, MSe = 363.3, p < .001, minF′(2, 83) = 5.5, p < .01, showing naming latency
differences according to whether the targets
were preceded by onset, onset + vowel, andcontrol primes. There was no interaction
between Structure and Overlap, F1(2, 46) = 1.1,
MSe = 612.2, p = .349, although approaching significance in the items analysis,F2(2, 46) = 2.99, MSe = 359. 3, p = .06, minF′(2, 76) < 1, indicating that the difference
between the three overlap conditions was notdependent on whether the target structure
adheres to CV or CVN. To further explore theoverlap effect, planned comparisons werecarried out. We found no significant difference
when comparing the onset, that is, [S+O+]
versus control [S+O–], t1(23) < 1, t2(23) = 1.7,
SD = 30.3, p = .105, min F′(1, 24) < 1 and[S–O+] versus [S–O–], t1(23) = 1.0, SD = 39.0,

p = .315, t2(23) = 1.1, SD = 26.4, p = .270, minF′(1, 46) < 1, conditions, but we did find significant differences for the onset + vowel overlap
conditions, [S+O++] versus [S+O–], that is,
23 ms facilitation, t1(23) = 3.3, SD = 34.3,
p < .01, t2(23) = 5.6, SD = 27.1, p < .001, minF′(1, 37) = 8.1, p < .01, and [S–O++] versus[S–O–], that is, 16 ms facilitation, t1(23) = 3.2,
SD = 23.8, p < .01, t2(23) = 2.3, SD = 27.0,
p < .05, min F′(1, 42) = 3.5, p = .07. See Table 1
for an overview of the results.

Discussion
Form-priming effects in reading aloud were
investigated in the current study.This study specifically sought to find out whether the unit toconstruct phonology in Chinese depends on theexact syllable match between prime and target
or whether altering the overlap between prime
and target without adhering to the full syllabic
overlap may also show significant priming.
Our data showed that strict syllabic overlap
between prime and target is not a necessary
condition to obtain facilitation in Chinese.
We did find substantial priming for identity
primes (CV-CV and CVN-CVN, e.g., /ba1/-/ba1/, /ban1/-/ban1/ vs. controls) but, crucially,
we also found significant priming when the syllabic structure did not overlap (CV-CVN, CVNCV, e.g., /ba1/-/ban1/ and /ban1/-/ba1/ vs.
controls). Interestingly, the effect size was notdifferent by participants, t1(23) < 1, but only byitems, t2(23) = 2.3, SD = 38.4, p < .05, min F′(1,28) < 1. We also assessed whether significant
priming for nonsyllabic overlapping combinations was not simply caused by the CVN-CV
prime-target combinations (although the structure is different, the prime in terms of segments
overlaps fully with the target and not partially,© Japanese Psychological Association 2014.

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R. G. Verdonschot, J. Lai, F. Chen, K. Tamaoka, and N. O. Schiller

as in the CV-CVN combinations). Therefore,
we analyzed only the [S–O++] versus [S–O–]
conditions for both CVN-CV and CV-CVN
type combinations (with combination being abetween-item variable). We found a significant
effect of combination, with CVN-CV combinations being 14 ms faster compared with
CV-CVN by participants, F1(1, 23) = 7.5,
MSe = 616.9, p < .05, but not by items, F2 < 1,
min F′(1, 26) < 1, and a significant effect ofoverlap with O++ overlap being 16 ms fasterthan the O– condition, F1(1, 23) = 11.8, MSe =539.9, p < .01, F2(1, 22) = 5.2, MSe = 377.5,
p < .05, min F′(1, 39) = 3.6, p = .07, but no interaction between combination and overlap, all
Fs < 1. Therefore, the effect holds for both theCV-CVN and CVN-CV overlap combinations.
Chen et al. (2002) and O’Seaghdha et al.
(2010) have used experimental stimuli either
overlapping in the onset or the whole syllable.
Our results indicated that it might be worthwhile for future investigations to extend theirresults by adding another condition similar tothe current experiment (nonsyllabic but morethan an onset overlap). This might potentiallyreveal significant priming. We would like topoint out that the current results at this time do
not warrant the conclusion that the fundamental unit in Chinese language production is CV.
Additional research (including independent
replications) is needed to corroborate thesefindings and it might be worthwhile to evenlook at larger overlap priming in Chinese (e.g.,
two vs. three segments in four-segment targets).
We would also like to put forward that bilingual
research also constitutes an important avenue
for future investigations concerning the structure of the fundamental phonological unit. For
instance, would Japanese-Chinese bilinguals
show CV or V-priming (both moras in Japanese) but not initial C-priming in their L2Chinese?
Our findings diverged from the results of
Verdonschot et al. (2013), who used identicalstimuli, in that the onset condition (O+) in ourstudy never showed significant priming (which
was observed for their proficient bilinguals).
Therefore, the conclusion of Verdonschot et al.
(2013) that onset priming even in Mandarin© Japanese Psychological Association 2014.

Chinese was caused by Chinese-English bilinguals having a good command of English is notinvalidated (as our participants can be considered monolinguals or at most having very poor
English proficiency).
In conclusion, the current findings are difficult to match with the claim that the syllable
is the obligatory building block in the initialconstruction of Mandarin Chinese phonology,
because in that case nonsyllabic overlapping
combinations would not have shown any
priming (and/or a significant interaction).
Our findings are therefore currently better
explained by advocating some form of thedegree of overlap hypothesis (e.g., Schiller,
1998, 2004; Wong & Chen, 2009). However, due
to the mixture of findings in the literature, replications and extensions of the current (and previous) findings are needed to specify the exact
conditions under which subsyllabic priming iseither present or absent.

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(Received October 17, 2013; accepted May 10, 2014)© Japanese Psychological Association 2014.

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Appendix
StimuliTargetba1 八ban1 搬hu1 乎hun1 昏sha1 杀
shan1 山xi1 西xin1 心ya1 鸭yan1 烟
cha2 茶chan2 缠pi2 皮
pin2 贫
qi2 奇qin2 秦zhe3 者
zhen3 枕ba4 罢ban4 半du4 肚dun4 顿
la4 辣lan4 烂

Prime
Structure+
Onset (O+)

Structure+
Full (O++)

Structure+
Control (O–)

Structure–
Onset (O+)

Structure–
Full (O++)

Structure–
Control (O–)

bi1 逼bin1 宾
ha1 哈
han1 憨
she1 奢
shen1 身xu1 需
xun1 熏
yu1 迂
yun1 晕
chu2 除chun2 纯pa2 爬pan2 盘
qu2 渠
qun2 群
zhu3 煮zhun3 准bi4 必
bin4 殡
da4 大dan4 蛋lu4 鹿
lun4 论

ba1 巴ban1 班
hu1 忽
hun1 荤
sha1 沙shan1 删xi1 息
xin1 新ya1 压yan1 淹
cha2 察chan2 馋pi2 啤pin2 频
qi2 其
qin2 琴zhe3 褶
zhen3 诊ba4 霸ban4 办
du4 渡
dun4 盾la4 腊lan4 滥

pa1 趴
pan1 攀
tu1 突
tun1 吞
cha1 插
chan1 搀qi1 七
qin1 亲
ta1 他
tan1 贪
na2 拿
nan2 男mi2 迷min2 民li2 离
lin2 林re3 惹
ren3 忍ta4 踏tan4 探gu4 顾gun4 棍
ma4 骂
man4 慢bin1 宾
bi1 逼han1 憨
ha1 哈
shen1 身she1 奢
xun1 熏
xu1 需
yun1 晕
yu1 迂
chun2 纯chu2 除pan2 盘
pa2 爬qun2 群qu2 渠zhun3 准zhu3 煮bin4 殡
bi4 必
dan4 蛋da4 大
lun4 论
lu4 鹿ban1 班ba1 巴
hun1 荤
hu1 忽
shan1 删sha1 沙xin1 新xi1 息yan1 淹
ya1 压
chan2 馋cha2 察pin2 频
pi2 啤qin2 琴qi2 其zhen3 诊zhe3 褶
ban4 办
ba4 霸dun4 盾du4 渡
lan4 滥
la4 腊pan1 攀
pa1 趴
tun1 吞
tu1 突
chan1 搀cha1 插
qin1 亲
qi1 七
tan1 贪
ta1 他
nan2 男na2 拿
min2 民mi2 迷lin2 林li2 离ren3 忍re3 惹
tan4 探ta4 踏
gun4 棍
gu4 顾
man4 慢ma4 骂© Japanese Psychological Association 2014.