A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu

Linguistics Student Association Colloquium San Diego State University May 1, 2010 A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu

The Jinhua tone system is changing: subtly, not categorically

1 Jinhua sandhi in context Dialectology of southern Wu Isolation tone system Tone sandhi Conditions for change

2 A sociotonetic study Data collection and processing Speaker similarities Sandhi contours are shifting What could explain the change? A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu Jinhua sandhi in context Dialectology of southern Wu Inland southern Wu

Nanjing ●

Wuxi● Inland Wu area charac- Suzhou● ● Shanghai ● Xuanzhou ● terized by: Huzhou ● Jiaxing Hangzhou ● High lexical and ● Shaoxing ● Ningbo phonological Jinhua ● ● variation ● Tangxi Quzhou ● Yongkang Taizhou● Lishui● Complicated tonal Wenzhou● phonology 100 km Language attrition in youngest Figure: Wu is spoken in Shanghai, most generation of Zhejiang, and neighboring corners of Anhui and Jiangsu. A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu Jinhua sandhi in context Isolation tone system Isolation tone categories and contours

contour Table: Tone categories of Jinhua (notation: Tcategory ) compared to Middle Chinese (from Qian (1992), for generation born ca. 1930) MC MC MC MC 435 544 45 4P MC [−vc] ons T1 T3 T5 T7 213 24 2P MC [+vc] ons T2 T6 T8

Typical Wu inventory: similar categories, diﬀerent contours Recent changes: 1 MC voiced obstruents devoiced, but murmured nearby 2 Generation born 100 years ago had distinct T4

T7 and T8 have very short contours, so will not be used in this study → 5 isolation tones ∼ 6 historical categories A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu Jinhua sandhi in context Tone sandhi Beijing sandhi

Tone sandhi: phonological change to lexically speciﬁed tone Example

Rule Example 214 55 214 T3 → T / # foN ùwej ‘feng-shui’ 35 35 214 → T2 / T3 ùwej kwo ‘fruit’ → T21/elsewhere ùwej21khu51 ‘reservoir’

The disyllabic sandhi of Beijing Mandarin is reducible, with few exceptions, to this one three-part phonological rule. A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu Jinhua sandhi in context Tone sandhi Jinhua sandhi

The disyllabic sandhi of Jinhua is very complicated. A general summary: 5 × 5 combinations of long tones produce about a dozen disyllabic sandhi contour categories The sandhi patterns are not reducible to coarticulation nor to a small number of rules or constraints. Jinhua exhibits ‘tone type recovery’: In some cases, historical tone categories that have merged in isolation have different sandhi patterns Different grammatical structures have different sandhi, and in addition, there is some unexplained lexical variation A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu Jinhua sandhi in context Tone sandhi Lexical variation in sandhi

For some combinations, as many as three diﬀerent patterns are observed, and the source of this lexical variation is largely unknown Cao (2002, p. 111): Example

55 313 T5 T2 → a. T33T14 pu.a tCju.dýjoN cloth shoe bedbug b. T33T55 su.ju sje.mAw veggie oil delicate c. T55T3 thja.m@N sje.dýju steel door snowball A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu Jinhua sandhi in context Conditions for change Jinhua is ripe for change

Conditions predispose Jinhua phonology to change: A generational shift from Wu dominance to Mandarin dominance Urbanization — contact with similar dialects

Likely recent loss of obstruent voicing contrast and T4 The sandhi system is diﬃcult: highly complicated and idiosyncratic A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu Jinhua sandhi in context Conditions for change Awareness of change

Change is informally acknowledged: Researchers and speakers mention “young people speak diﬀerent” But no systematic study of variation in Jinhua sandhi systems. A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study

Motivating Hypothesis

Hypothesis (Regularization) The younger generation learned the complicated sandhi system incompletely, regularizing idiosyncracies and merging categories

,→ Disconﬁrmed: The contours are changing systematically, but the categories are fairly stable A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study Data collection and processing Elicitation

Based on acoustic dialectology procedure (You & Yang, 2001) Stimuli are disyllabic words representing tone combinations h In carrier sentence t iN5 sa1 pje6 (‘Listen to three times’) 4 groups of speakers: 1 urban older group: 5 speakers born 1931-1952 2 urban younger group: 5 speakers born 1984-1989 3 rural older group: 2 speakers born 1946-1949 4 rural younger group: 3 speakers born 1985-1986 A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study Data collection and processing Stimuli

Structure of compound or modiﬁer+noun Tone domain (domain of characteristic tone contour) assumed to be the ﬁnal (yunmu) (Rose, 1998) 108 stimuli: 3 words for each combination of the 6 historical long tones (MC , , × [±vc])

Example

foN1 Cy3 ‘feng shui’ A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study Data collection and processing Data Processing

Tone domains annotated by hand Pitch tracks extracted automatically in Praat Each tone domain’s contour summarized as a quadratic curve, by polynomial regression with the intercept in the middle of the tone domain → each disyllabic contour is two parabolas The collection of all speakers’ contours for a word is used as mathematical abstraction of that word The collection of all words’ contours by a speaker is used as mathematical abstraction of that speaker A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study Data collection and processing Principle Components Analysis (PCA)

PCA: A key tool in a highly bottom-up procedure 1 Represent words or speakers as vectors of contour parameters 2 Rotate and select dimensions that represent the most variance 3 Visualize similarities and diﬀerences in those dimensions The resulting dimensions might not have obvious meaning, but sometimes they do. A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study Speaker similarities PCA of speaker similarities

Variance per dimension 0.15 Figure: The 4 dimensions with the 0.10 most variance represent 47% of the between-speaker 0.05 Proportion of variance variance. 0.00

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N

Dimension Index A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study Speaker similarities Dimensions B and D

Figure: Data from speakers 18 and 23 are atypical, so we set them aside. Borders: older (blue) and younger (red); Fill: urban Jinhua (blue) and Zhuma village (yellow); Shapes: men (circles) and women (squares). A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study Speaker similarities Dimensions A and C

Figure: Dimension A is associated with generation, and Dimension C is associated with location. The circled groups become the basis of further analysis. A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study Sandhi contours are shifting PCA of word diﬀerences

Variance per dimension 0.30 Figure: Dimensions 1 and 2 together

0.20 represent 61% of the variance. We will also look brieﬂy at 0.10

Proportion of variance Dimensions 3 and 4. 0.00 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11

Dimension Index A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study Sandhi contours are shifting Dimension meanings: archetype contours

Older speakers Younger speakers

1.0 1.0 Dim 1 Dim 2 Dim 3 Dim 4 0.5 0.5 0.0 0.0 Arbitrary F0 units Arbitrary F0 units −0.5 −0.5

1st domain 2nd domain 1st domain 2nd domain −1.0 −1.0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0

Normalized time Normalized time

Figure: Older speakers: D1 ∼ tone domains’ height diﬀerence; D2 ∼ fall-rise vs rise-fall; D3 ∼ overall height; D4 ∼ contours rise/fall equally. Younger: D1 and D2 contours are shifted. A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study Sandhi contours are shifting Contour changes

Figure: The change in D2 captures the rising tones getting lower and the falling tones getting higher. The change in D1 captures the low turning towards falling and the high turning towards rising. A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study Sandhi contours are shifting The shift is a generalization

Counterclockwise words Clockwise Words 3 3 2 2 1 1 0 0 Dimension 2 Dimension 2 −1 −1 −2 −2 −3 −3

−2 −1 0 1 2 3 −2 −1 0 1 2 3

Dimension 1 Dimension 1

Figure: Each arrow indicates one word’s change from older speakers’ contour to younger speakers’ contour. A large majority of words have moved in a counter-clockwise direction. A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study What could explain the change? Mandarin inﬂuence

Hypothesis (Mandarin Categories) The younger generation are reclassifying words according to Mandarin categories

,→ A few words are being reclassiﬁed, but most of the changes are small, not categorical Hypothesis (Mandarin Contours) The younger generation are perceiving/producing contours according to the Mandarin contour shapes

51 ,→ Could cause falls → higher (cf. Mandarin T4 ) and lows → 214 21 falls (cf. Mandarin T3 ∼ T3 ). But not rises → lower (cf. 35 55 Mandarin T2 ), nor highs → rises (cf. Mandarin T1 ) A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study What could explain the change? Temporal realignment

Hypothesis (Delay) The younger generation misperceives or misproduces the contour slightly later within the syllable. 1 The end of the contour is lost. 2 The beginning is recreated from coarticulation. A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study What could explain the change? Temporal realignment

35 Sanders (2008) provides a similar account for how Beijing T2 324 became Taiwan Mandarin T2 . Lee (in prep) has similar results from Singapore Mandarin 3224 (T2 ), where English-dominant bilinguals have a delayed ﬁnal rise compared to Mandarin-dominant bilinguals. In these cases, only one tone category shows a delay, whereas in Jinhua, all the sandhi tones are aﬀected. A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study What could explain the change? Conclusions

The observed change is consistent with temporally shifting the contours within the syllable The change is not consistent with direct inﬂuence from Mandarin tone categories The social conditions in Jinhua predispose it to change No obvious link to particular linguistic features (besides tone contours) → We should expect to ﬁnd similar tonal evolution in other contour tone languages A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study What could explain the change? Acknowledgements

Special thanks to: The people of Jinhua, especially the native speakers recorded for this study, and Emily Cen, Betty Hu, and Angie Kim The linguists of UCSD, especially Sharon Rose and the other members of SaD PhIG A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study What could explain the change? References

Cao, Z. (2002). Nanbu Wuyu yuyin yanjiu [Southern Wu phonology research]. Beijing: Shangwu Yin Shuguan. Lee, L. (in prep). Acoustic analysis of the tonal system of Singapore Mandarin. In Proceedings of IACL-18/NACCL-22. Qian, N. (1992). Dangdai Wuyu yanjiu [Contemporary Wu research]. Shanghai: Shanghai Jiaoyu Chuban She. Rose, P. (1998). The diﬀerential status of semivowels in the acoustic phonetic realisation of tone. In 5th ICSLP. (Paper 298) Sanders, R. (2008). Tonetic sound change in Taiwan Mandarin: The case of tone 2 and tone 3 citation contours. In 20th NACCL (pp. 87–107). You, R., & Yang, J. (2001). Jinhua fangyan shengdiao shiyan yanjiu [Jinhua dialect tone experimental research]. In Wuyu shengdiao de shiyan yanjiu [Wu tone experimental research]. Shanghai: Fudan Daxue Chuban She. A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study What could explain the change? PCA of groups’ mean contour representations

−5 0 5

26_1 b2o22_2 Figure: Original 66_226_2 0.2 22_3 representations b2y 22_1 25_126_3 52_2 5 65_3 52_1 projected onto ﬁrst 21_2 52_3c2y46_254_3 21_1 46_161_236_2 0.1 21_3 35_2 34_3 two dimensions. 25_3 16_145_135_131_154_162_2 25_2 56_365_135_361_145_336_346_3 56_161_345_2 41_141_3 Speaker groups: ‘o’, 15_2 51_131_255_3 34_266_3a1y PC2 12_3 56_2 c2o 12_2c1y11_351_215_123_162_154_231_341_266_1 0 0.0 12_124_315_311_2 42_3 55_224_211_1 ‘y’ and ‘z’ vectors; 16_2 33_343_1 51_3 a1o 23_3 64_363_233_133_2 36_1 65_2 23_224_1 32_2 Heights: ‘a’ vectors; a2o c1o 13_153_244_244_334_163_163_343_243_3 55_1 42_1 14_1 53_3 32_3 −0.1 44_164_253_113_216_3 14_214_313_3 Slopes: ‘b’ vectors; 64_1 b1y32_1 −5 b1o42_2 Curvatures: ‘c’ a2y 62_3 −0.2 vectors −0.2 −0.1 0.0 0.1 0.2

PC1 A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study What could explain the change? Word similarities and groups

E 26_1 4 E Figure: Plot of stimuli E 22_2 26_2 E contour similarity, in E E 22_3 25_166_2 E 22_1 E I the ﬁrst two principle 65_3 E 52_2 D 26_3 I D J I I 2 21_1 21_2 52_3 61_252_1J I 54_3 components. Word D 46_2 21_3 C 35_2 I J 36_2 D 16_1 35_1 I I 25_2 J 46_1 62_2I clusters are indicated D JJ 45_1JJ C I 34_3 25_3 C C 61_335_3 45_345_2J54_1 F 36_3 65_1 56_3 C 61_1 31_1 F I F 46_3 I by the colored letters. 56_1 41_3 66_3 A C 31_2F F Dim. 2 A A A AA51_2 54_2 F 41_1 I 34_2 0 12_3 12_215_256_2A15_1AA 51_1FF D 11_2 C C F 66_1 The ﬁrst two digits of AD 24_2A 55_223_1 31_341_2 12_124_3 63_262_1 55_3 11_3A A 15_3 A 11_1 the word labels refer 16_2 F G H 42_3 36_1 C 33_1 H H G 65_2 B H H 33_2 43_1 G 32_2 to the tone B B 64_3H33_3 F32_3 G 23_3B13_1B 24_1 63_1 42_1 44_2 H H 51_3 23_2 B 43_3H F −2 B H 63_3 categories, numbered B B BH 53_2 H 43_2 55_1 G B 53_3B 34_144_3 14_1 53_144_116_364_2BB 32_1 B 13_313_2 14_3B 64_1 14_2 sequentially 1 K K 42_2 62_3 through 6.

−4 −2 0 2 4

Dim. 1 A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study What could explain the change? Word familiarity vs contour change

● 2

● ● 1 Figure: Familiarity

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● of a word does ● ● ● ● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ● 0 ● ●● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●● ● ● ●● ● ● ● not predict the ● ● ● ●● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● magnitude of −1 ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●● ● Clockwise motion ● ● ● ● ● counter-clockwise ● ● ● ● −2 ● motion

−3 ●

−2.0 −1.5 −1.0 −0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0

Mean Familiarity sec. Young Speakers A Diachronic Chain Shift in the Sandhi Tones of Jinhua Wu A sociotonetic study What could explain the change? Sandhi system of the older speakers

2nd Syllable JH class ① ② ③ JH reg. H L H L H L JH JH row/col 33/45 41/13 54 54 45 13 class reg. trend 33.13 H 33 33.45 33.45 33.54 33.54 33.45 ① 33.45 33.45 21.45 L 21 21.45 31.24 21.45 31.24 33.54 33.54 e l

b H 55 55.33 55.41 44.54 44.54 54.44 45.13 a l

l ②

y 44.54

S 55.33 55.41 44.54 54.44 45.13

L 55 t

s 33.54 1 33.45 33.45 33.45 H 33 45.13 33.54 33.54 ③ 55.33 55.33 45.13 14.31 44.54 31.24 31.24 L 31/45 54.44 44.54 45.13 33.54 12.45 45.13