Cross-dialectal perspectives on Mandarin neutral tone

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4580144
AutoresChenzi Xu (0000-0001-6506-4513, University of Oxford, autor de correspondencia)
Año2024
Volumen106
Páginas101341
Fecha de publicación2024-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Phonetics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0095-4470 • E-ISSN: 1095-8576
EditorialElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101341
OpenAlexW4400874469
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas42

With an aim to investigate the nature of Mandarin neutral tone through the lens of language variation and change, this study examines the pitch patterns of speech sequences containing neutral tone syllables, i.e. those that do not have any of the four canonical lexical tones and are often overlooked in prior studies of tones, in two Mandarin varieties: Standard Mandarin and Plastic Mandarin spoken in Changsha, China. Using Generalised Additive Mixed Models, the study shows (a) that f0 contours of a sequence of neutral tone syllables following various lexical tones converge in the end at a low pitch in both Mandarin varieties, and (b) that the low pitch target of neutral tone syllables tends to be the same across the two Mandarin varieties. The cross-dialectal comparison favours the phonological account that neutral tone is underlyingly underspecified and attracts the boundary tone. It suggests that the constant pitch target across two Mandarin varieties with distinct lexical tone contours may be attributed to the stable transfer of prosodic structure in the Standard-Plastic variation

Astrophysics · Linguistics · Mandarin Chinese · Physics · Speech recognition · Tone (literature) · Variation (astronomy) · Computer Science · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Mathematics · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation