Phonetic Correlates of Lexical Neural Tone Within Mandarin Two-Character Compounds in Four Full Tones Contexts

Zhongpei Zhang; Anne Lacheret-Dujour; Frédéric Isel

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13

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Phonetic Correlates of Lexical Neural Tone Within Mandarin Two-Character Compounds in Four Full Tones Contexts

Zhongpei Zhang, Anne Lacheret-Dujour, Frédéric Isel

Published in International Journal of Language and Linguistics (Volume 11, Issue 4)

Received: 9 May 2023 Accepted: 5 June 2023 Published: 24 July 2023

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Abstract

In Mandarin two-character compound words, the syllable of the second rightmost constituent may be neutralized, which in combination with the first full tone as to form a neutral tone compound with a trochee prosody pattern [Strong-weak]. Because a constituent (character in writing form) can carry more than one tone, it is possible that a constituent has both a full tone form and a neutral tone form, which may be semantically different. This study focused on the prosodic features of the second constituent in both disyllabic neutral tone and full tone compounds across four full tones contexts. Our goal was to investigate the acoustic features of neutral tones in contrast with their full tone counterparts. For this purpose, we selected 80 minimal pairs of two-character compounds, i.e., 巴掌 /ba1zhang0/ (clap) and 手掌 /shou3zhang3/ (hands), their second constituents present the identical syllabic structure /zhang/ and the contrastive tone patterns (in this example, neutral tone (Tone 0) vs. full tone (Tone 3)). One-hundred sixty target compound words were embedded within a short carrier sentence and recorded by native speakers of Mandarin. The acoustic correlates of the paired second syllables within the minimal pairs were examined by using Praat and R-studio, including the duration, pitch (F0) and intensity, and the averaged pitch curve of target compounds are represented through the point-to-point graphical comparisons. Our results indicate two main findings. Firstly, we confirmed that the acoustic features of neutral tone are phonetically reduced in contrast to the full tone. Secondly, neutral tone shares some common features with their full tone counterparts in the intensity and pitch level, whereas the duration and pitch range reveal barely any significant differences across four full tones contexts. In the results, the pitch onset value of the second neutral tone is mainly dependent on the offset of the preceding full tone, except for the Tone 4. Our results suggest a phonetic interaction between the first full tone constituent and second neutral tone constituent, which lends support to the assumption that neutral tone is phonetically reduced in comparison with full tones, and it can be predicted on the basis of acoustic features of the first constituent like pitch offset.

Published in	International Journal of Language and Linguistics (Volume 11, Issue 4)
DOI	10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13
Page(s)	107-118
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Compounds, Mandarin, Neutral Tone, Full Tone

References

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[9]	Lin, M. and J. Yan, Neutral tone and stress in Mandarin Chinese. Language Teaching and Linguistic Studies, 1990. 3: p. 88-104.
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[11]	Tang, P., A study of prosodic errors of Chinese neutral tone by advanced Japanese students (Chinese version). TCSOL Studies, 2014. 56 (4): p. 39-47.
[12]	Wang, Y., The effects of pitch and duration on the perception of the neutral tone in standard Chinese. Acta Acustica, 2004.
[13]	Wang, J., The representation of the neutral tone in Chinese Putonghua. Studies in Chinese phonology, 1997. 20: p. 157.
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[21]	Li, Z., The phonetics and phonology of tone mapping in a constraint-based approach. 2003, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
[22]	Sproat, R. W., Multilingual text-to-speech synthesis. 1997: KLUWER academic publishers.
[23]	Chen, Y. and Y. Xu, Production of weak elements in speech–evidence from f0 patterns of neutral tone in Standard Chinese. Phonetica, 2006. 63 (1): p. 47-75.
[24]	Zhao, G., The contemporary Chinese dictionary. 2015, Oxford University Press.
[25]	Boersma, P. Praat: doing phonetics by computer. 2006; Available from: http://www.praat.org/.
[26]	Xu, Y., Contextual tonal variations in Mandarin. Journal of phonetics, 1997. 25 (1): p. 61-83.
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[28]	Shen, X. S., Relative duration as a perceptual cue to stress in Mandarin. Language and Speech, 1993. 36 (4): p. 415-433.

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Zhongpei Zhang, Anne Lacheret-Dujour, Frédéric Isel. (2023). Phonetic Correlates of Lexical Neural Tone Within Mandarin Two-Character Compounds in Four Full Tones Contexts. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 11(4), 107-118. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13

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ACS Style

Zhongpei Zhang; Anne Lacheret-Dujour; Frédéric Isel. Phonetic Correlates of Lexical Neural Tone Within Mandarin Two-Character Compounds in Four Full Tones Contexts. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2023, 11(4), 107-118. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13

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AMA Style

Zhongpei Zhang, Anne Lacheret-Dujour, Frédéric Isel. Phonetic Correlates of Lexical Neural Tone Within Mandarin Two-Character Compounds in Four Full Tones Contexts. Int J Lang Linguist. 2023;11(4):107-118. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13

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@article{10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13,
  author = {Zhongpei Zhang and Anne Lacheret-Dujour and Frédéric Isel},
  title = {Phonetic Correlates of Lexical Neural Tone Within Mandarin Two-Character Compounds in Four Full Tones Contexts},
  journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
  volume = {11},
  number = {4},
  pages = {107-118},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.20231104.13},
  abstract = {In Mandarin two-character compound words, the syllable of the second rightmost constituent may be neutralized, which in combination with the first full tone as to form a neutral tone compound with a trochee prosody pattern [Strong-weak]. Because a constituent (character in writing form) can carry more than one tone, it is possible that a constituent has both a full tone form and a neutral tone form, which may be semantically different. This study focused on the prosodic features of the second constituent in both disyllabic neutral tone and full tone compounds across four full tones contexts. Our goal was to investigate the acoustic features of neutral tones in contrast with their full tone counterparts. For this purpose, we selected 80 minimal pairs of two-character compounds, i.e., 巴掌 /ba1zhang0/ (clap) and 手掌 /shou3zhang3/ (hands), their second constituents present the identical syllabic structure /zhang/ and the contrastive tone patterns (in this example, neutral tone (Tone 0) vs. full tone (Tone 3)). One-hundred sixty target compound words were embedded within a short carrier sentence and recorded by native speakers of Mandarin. The acoustic correlates of the paired second syllables within the minimal pairs were examined by using Praat and R-studio, including the duration, pitch (F0) and intensity, and the averaged pitch curve of target compounds are represented through the point-to-point graphical comparisons. Our results indicate two main findings. Firstly, we confirmed that the acoustic features of neutral tone are phonetically reduced in contrast to the full tone. Secondly, neutral tone shares some common features with their full tone counterparts in the intensity and pitch level, whereas the duration and pitch range reveal barely any significant differences across four full tones contexts. In the results, the pitch onset value of the second neutral tone is mainly dependent on the offset of the preceding full tone, except for the Tone 4. Our results suggest a phonetic interaction between the first full tone constituent and second neutral tone constituent, which lends support to the assumption that neutral tone is phonetically reduced in comparison with full tones, and it can be predicted on the basis of acoustic features of the first constituent like pitch offset.},
 year = {2023}
}

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TY  - JOUR
T1  - Phonetic Correlates of Lexical Neural Tone Within Mandarin Two-Character Compounds in Four Full Tones Contexts
AU  - Zhongpei Zhang
AU  - Anne Lacheret-Dujour
AU  - Frédéric Isel
Y1  - 2023/07/24
PY  - 2023
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13
DO  - 10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13
T2  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
JF  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
JO  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
SP  - 107
EP  - 118
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2330-0221
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13
AB  - In Mandarin two-character compound words, the syllable of the second rightmost constituent may be neutralized, which in combination with the first full tone as to form a neutral tone compound with a trochee prosody pattern [Strong-weak]. Because a constituent (character in writing form) can carry more than one tone, it is possible that a constituent has both a full tone form and a neutral tone form, which may be semantically different. This study focused on the prosodic features of the second constituent in both disyllabic neutral tone and full tone compounds across four full tones contexts. Our goal was to investigate the acoustic features of neutral tones in contrast with their full tone counterparts. For this purpose, we selected 80 minimal pairs of two-character compounds, i.e., 巴掌 /ba1zhang0/ (clap) and 手掌 /shou3zhang3/ (hands), their second constituents present the identical syllabic structure /zhang/ and the contrastive tone patterns (in this example, neutral tone (Tone 0) vs. full tone (Tone 3)). One-hundred sixty target compound words were embedded within a short carrier sentence and recorded by native speakers of Mandarin. The acoustic correlates of the paired second syllables within the minimal pairs were examined by using Praat and R-studio, including the duration, pitch (F0) and intensity, and the averaged pitch curve of target compounds are represented through the point-to-point graphical comparisons. Our results indicate two main findings. Firstly, we confirmed that the acoustic features of neutral tone are phonetically reduced in contrast to the full tone. Secondly, neutral tone shares some common features with their full tone counterparts in the intensity and pitch level, whereas the duration and pitch range reveal barely any significant differences across four full tones contexts. In the results, the pitch onset value of the second neutral tone is mainly dependent on the offset of the preceding full tone, except for the Tone 4. Our results suggest a phonetic interaction between the first full tone constituent and second neutral tone constituent, which lends support to the assumption that neutral tone is phonetically reduced in comparison with full tones, and it can be predicted on the basis of acoustic features of the first constituent like pitch offset.
VL  - 11
IS  - 4
ER  -

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Author Information

Zhongpei Zhang

Laboratory Models, Dynamics, Corpora, UMR 7114-CNRS, University Paris Nanterre, Nanterre, France
Anne Lacheret-Dujour

Laboratory Models, Dynamics, Corpora, UMR 7114-CNRS, University Paris Nanterre, Nanterre, France
Frédéric Isel

Laboratory Models, Dynamics, Corpora, UMR 7114-CNRS, University Paris Nanterre, Nanterre, France

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Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Zhongpei Zhang, Anne Lacheret-Dujour, Frédéric Isel. (2023). Phonetic Correlates of Lexical Neural Tone Within Mandarin Two-Character Compounds in Four Full Tones Contexts. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 11(4), 107-118. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13

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ACS Style

Zhongpei Zhang; Anne Lacheret-Dujour; Frédéric Isel. Phonetic Correlates of Lexical Neural Tone Within Mandarin Two-Character Compounds in Four Full Tones Contexts. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2023, 11(4), 107-118. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13

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AMA Style

Zhongpei Zhang, Anne Lacheret-Dujour, Frédéric Isel. Phonetic Correlates of Lexical Neural Tone Within Mandarin Two-Character Compounds in Four Full Tones Contexts. Int J Lang Linguist. 2023;11(4):107-118. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13,
  author = {Zhongpei Zhang and Anne Lacheret-Dujour and Frédéric Isel},
  title = {Phonetic Correlates of Lexical Neural Tone Within Mandarin Two-Character Compounds in Four Full Tones Contexts},
  journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
  volume = {11},
  number = {4},
  pages = {107-118},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.20231104.13},
  abstract = {In Mandarin two-character compound words, the syllable of the second rightmost constituent may be neutralized, which in combination with the first full tone as to form a neutral tone compound with a trochee prosody pattern [Strong-weak]. Because a constituent (character in writing form) can carry more than one tone, it is possible that a constituent has both a full tone form and a neutral tone form, which may be semantically different. This study focused on the prosodic features of the second constituent in both disyllabic neutral tone and full tone compounds across four full tones contexts. Our goal was to investigate the acoustic features of neutral tones in contrast with their full tone counterparts. For this purpose, we selected 80 minimal pairs of two-character compounds, i.e., 巴掌 /ba1zhang0/ (clap) and 手掌 /shou3zhang3/ (hands), their second constituents present the identical syllabic structure /zhang/ and the contrastive tone patterns (in this example, neutral tone (Tone 0) vs. full tone (Tone 3)). One-hundred sixty target compound words were embedded within a short carrier sentence and recorded by native speakers of Mandarin. The acoustic correlates of the paired second syllables within the minimal pairs were examined by using Praat and R-studio, including the duration, pitch (F0) and intensity, and the averaged pitch curve of target compounds are represented through the point-to-point graphical comparisons. Our results indicate two main findings. Firstly, we confirmed that the acoustic features of neutral tone are phonetically reduced in contrast to the full tone. Secondly, neutral tone shares some common features with their full tone counterparts in the intensity and pitch level, whereas the duration and pitch range reveal barely any significant differences across four full tones contexts. In the results, the pitch onset value of the second neutral tone is mainly dependent on the offset of the preceding full tone, except for the Tone 4. Our results suggest a phonetic interaction between the first full tone constituent and second neutral tone constituent, which lends support to the assumption that neutral tone is phonetically reduced in comparison with full tones, and it can be predicted on the basis of acoustic features of the first constituent like pitch offset.},
 year = {2023}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Phonetic Correlates of Lexical Neural Tone Within Mandarin Two-Character Compounds in Four Full Tones Contexts
AU  - Zhongpei Zhang
AU  - Anne Lacheret-Dujour
AU  - Frédéric Isel
Y1  - 2023/07/24
PY  - 2023
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13
DO  - 10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13
T2  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
JF  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
JO  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
SP  - 107
EP  - 118
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2330-0221
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20231104.13
AB  - In Mandarin two-character compound words, the syllable of the second rightmost constituent may be neutralized, which in combination with the first full tone as to form a neutral tone compound with a trochee prosody pattern [Strong-weak]. Because a constituent (character in writing form) can carry more than one tone, it is possible that a constituent has both a full tone form and a neutral tone form, which may be semantically different. This study focused on the prosodic features of the second constituent in both disyllabic neutral tone and full tone compounds across four full tones contexts. Our goal was to investigate the acoustic features of neutral tones in contrast with their full tone counterparts. For this purpose, we selected 80 minimal pairs of two-character compounds, i.e., 巴掌 /ba1zhang0/ (clap) and 手掌 /shou3zhang3/ (hands), their second constituents present the identical syllabic structure /zhang/ and the contrastive tone patterns (in this example, neutral tone (Tone 0) vs. full tone (Tone 3)). One-hundred sixty target compound words were embedded within a short carrier sentence and recorded by native speakers of Mandarin. The acoustic correlates of the paired second syllables within the minimal pairs were examined by using Praat and R-studio, including the duration, pitch (F0) and intensity, and the averaged pitch curve of target compounds are represented through the point-to-point graphical comparisons. Our results indicate two main findings. Firstly, we confirmed that the acoustic features of neutral tone are phonetically reduced in contrast to the full tone. Secondly, neutral tone shares some common features with their full tone counterparts in the intensity and pitch level, whereas the duration and pitch range reveal barely any significant differences across four full tones contexts. In the results, the pitch onset value of the second neutral tone is mainly dependent on the offset of the preceding full tone, except for the Tone 4. Our results suggest a phonetic interaction between the first full tone constituent and second neutral tone constituent, which lends support to the assumption that neutral tone is phonetically reduced in comparison with full tones, and it can be predicted on the basis of acoustic features of the first constituent like pitch offset.
VL  - 11
IS  - 4
ER  -

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