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Article published In:
Chinese Language and Discourse
Vol. 13:2 (2022) ► pp.302–327

Phonetic fusion in Chinese conversational speech

| Academia Sinica

This paper presents a corpus-based perspective on the phonetic fusion of disyllabic words in a Chinese conversational speech corpus. Four categorical types that reflect the phonological features of reduction degrees are automatically derived from gradient, acoustic properties. A transcription experiment is conducted with the most common disyllabic words. Both automatic derivation by acoustic signals and human transcription by perceptual judgment refer to the same sound inventory. We have shown that the complete form of fusion occurring in conversation need not be legitimate syllables and it appears consistently in the form of syllable merger that represents a group of phonetic variants.

Keywords: conversational speech, phonetic variation, syllable merger
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Mandarin Chinese
    • 1.2Fusion and reduction
      • 1.2.1Word fusion
      • 1.2.2Phonetic reduction
  • 2.Background, data and methodology
    • 2.1Relevance of cross-syllable boundaries for phonetic fusion
    • 2.2Categories of disyllabic contraction
    • 2.3From acoustic models, surface forms to categorical reduction types
    • 2.4Phonemically transcribing common disyllabic words
  • 3.Results and analysis
    • 3.1SYM is most often used, but CAN is most representative
    • 3.2Duration and production frequency
    • 3.3Fusion inspected via acoustics and perception
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 September 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cld.21004.tse
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