Accounting for Lexical Tones When Modeling Phonological Distance

Abstract

Methods of quantifying distance between sound sequences are known as phonological distance measures. Despite their wide applications across subfields, phonological distance has been calculated mainly with features related to consonants and vowels. This paper establishes new measurements of phonological distance by incorporating 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 measure and functional load, suggesting that lexical components playing a more crucial role in phonological distance judgments are also lexically less predictable. Implications on phonological distance measures are discussed.