A Mandarin Chinese speaker produces 'nǐ hǎo' (你好) slowly, deliberately pausing between words. Which outcome becomes likely when the prosodic boundary between syllables is exaggerated?

💡 Explanation

The exaggerated pause enhances the separation between syllables, leading to greater clarity in the individual tones. This prominence causes listeners to perceive each syllable's citation tone, because the tone sandhi effect relies on a more fluid, connected speech pattern; therefore, listeners perceive the tones in isolation, rather than their altered forms within a phrase, rather than assimilating the tonal contours.

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