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Article published In:
International Journal of Chinese Linguistics
Vol. 6:2 (2019) ► pp.183–220

A quantitative analysis of tone sandhi in Standard Mandarin and Nanjing Mandarin based on surface pitch contours and underlying pitch targets

| The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
| University of Florida
| City University of Hong Kong
| University of Florida
Two statistical modelling methods are first used to quantify the third tone sandhi in Standard Mandarin in which the first falling-rising T3 becomes a rising T2 in the T3 + T3 disyllabic context. Growth curve analysis suggests non-neutralization of the surface F0 contours of the sandhi tone and its corresponding citation tone (T2), whereas a quantitative F0 target approximation model reveals neutralization of their underlying pitch targets, congruent with the stable and categorical tone shift properties of tone sandhi processes. The same statistical procedure is successfully extended to examine tone sandhi rules in Nanjing Mandarin. Our analysis leads to a proposal to change tonal values based on the Chao’s number system of some Nanjing Mandarin monosyllabic tones. The transformation method from acoustic data to Chao’s number applies well to our data and proves superior to those previously described in the literature.
Keywords: tone sandhi, growth curve analysis, linear systems, underlying pitch target, Standard Mandarin, Nanjing Mandarin
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Characteristics of tone sandhi
    • 1.2Underlying pitch targets
  • 2.Tone sandhi in Standard Mandarin
    • 2.1Background of Standard Mandarin
    • 2.2Stimuli
    • 2.3Participants and experimental procedure
    • 2.4F0 extractions and statistical analysis
      • 2.4.1Surface F0 contours: Growth curve analysis
      • 2.4.2Underlying pitch targets
    • 2.5Results for Standard Mandarin
    • 2.6A comparison of statistical methods
  • 3.Tone sandhi rules in Nanjing Mandarin
    • 3.1Background of Nanjing Mandarin
    • 3.2Participants and stimuli
    • 3.3F0 extractions and statistical analysis
    • 3.4Results of testing surface contours of Nanjing Mandarin sandhi tones
    • 3.5Underlying pitch targets of Nanjing Mandarin monosyllabic tones
    • 3.6Results of testing underlying pitch targets of Nanjing Mandarin sandhi tones
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1Transcriptions of Nanjing Mandarin monosyllabic tones
    • 4.2Modelling tone sandhi
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 14 January 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijchl.18011.che
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