When pre-lexical editors encounter tone sandhi in contour-tone languages, which consequence follows regarding the perception of word boundaries?

💡 Explanation

Tone sandhi modifies the tonal contour of a word based on its neighbors; because the contour shift blurs distinctions, the mechanism of tonal cues weakens the perception of distinct word boundaries. Therefore, morpheme segmentation becomes more ambiguous, rather than enhancing pauses or uniformly shortening access times.

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