Pitch Target Realization in Putonghua Tone Production of Children from Dialect-Speaking Regions

Tonal production can be understood as a target realization process. In a hybrid linguistic environment, tonal targets may interfere with one another. This study examines the production of Putonghua tones from both on- and off-target perspectives, using data from 139 children (aged 35–71 months) with Changli dialect exposure, drawn from the CL-CHILD corpus. Results reveal that: (1) children's pitch target realization is universally constrained by physiological limitations, exhibiting cross-linguistic commonalities; (2) dialect exposure causes persistent pitch target interference over an extended period; (3) off-target pronunciations stem from phonetic similarities across tonal categories and emerge through mutual interference between multiple targets. These findings underscore that children's tonal development is a dynamic process of target approximation, shaped by both physiological constraints and language experience.