TAL 2012 ̶ Third International ISCA Archive Symposium on Tonal Aspects of http://www.isca-speech.org/archive Languages Nanjing, China, May 26-29, 2012 Pitch and Phonation Type Perception in Wenzhou Dialect Tone Xu Xiaoying1, Liu Xuefei2, Tao Jianhua3, Che Hao4 1, 2PSC Center/School of Chinese Language & Literature, Beijing Normal University, China 1, 2, 3, 4 NLPR, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
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[email protected], {jhtao, hche}@nlpr.ia.ac.cn Some stimuli, especially tone 4, could carry a wide range of Abstract F0 contours and still be identified as belonging to the original Wenzhou dialect is characterized by alarge tonal inventory tonal category; many other tones, however, were perceived as and tones which combine pitch contour and phonation type belonging to other categories with only slight modifications to cues. In this paper, a perception experiment was conducted to F0. IV) Phonation type impacts the identification of some tone investigate identification cues of the eight tones in Wenzhou. categories. Below, based on the results, the phonological The results of the experiment show that: I) Not all native organization of Wenzhou tone system is examined and the speakers can identify tones using pitch contour alone. II) It implications for reconstructing the Middle Chinese tonal was difficult for participants to recognize tone 1. III) Some system are discussed. stimuli, especially tone 4, could carry a wide range of F0 The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 contours and still be identified as belonging to the original reviews the relevant literature.