Exploring Tonal Variation Using Dialect Tonometry

Bibliographic Data

ID7903879
AuthorsHo Wang Matthew Sung (0009-0009-7178-6331, Leiden University, corresponding author), Jelena Prokić (0000-0003-2928-7271, Leiden University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume9
Issue12
Pages378
Publication date2024-12-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguages (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2226-471X • E-ISSN: 2226-471X
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/languages9120378
OpenAlexW4405530479
LanguageEN
References cited23

Most research on dialectometry so far primarily focuses on European languages. Within these studies, analyses on the phonetic level predominantly focus on segments. A lack of studies on languages outside of Europe means that the variation in many lesser-studied languages, including tonal languages, is largely unknown. Tonal languages are languages which pitch is used as an indication in the lexical realisations in (at least some) morphemes, and over half of the world’s languages include lexical tones. Despite tones being the inseparable and unneglectable part of the majority of the world’s languages, there is only a handful of quantitative dialectometric studies on the dialectal variation in tonal languages. In this paper, we explore the phonetic and phonological variations in Yue, a lesser-studied tonal language spoken by around 80 million people in Southern China. Using a newly devised tone representation (modified Onset–Contour–Offset) combined with the Levenshtein distance, we explore the patterns of dialectal variation on the tonal level, as well as to what extent tonal variation correlates with segmental variation. Our results show that tones behave rather differently from segments, and thus, we illustrate that studying lesser-studied and tonal languages can contribute immensely to the study of dialect variation in general

Astrophysics · Linguistics · Physics · Variation (astronomy · Computer Science · Music and Audio Processing · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Speech and Audio Processing

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