Tone Sandhi in Jiaonan Dialect: an Optimality Theoretical Account
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TAL 2012 ̶ Third International ISCA Archive Symposium on Tonal Aspects of http://www.isca-speech.org/archive Languages Nanjing, China, May 26-29, 2012 Tone Sandhi in Jiaonan Dialect: an Optimality Theoretical Account Zhao Cunhua 1, Zhai Honghua 2 1 College of Foreign Languages, Shandong University of Science and Technology, China 2 College of Foreign Languages, Shandong University of Science and Technology, China [email protected], [email protected] Abstract 2. Experimental Description Based on phonetic experiment, this paper aims at providing The raw phonetic data is gained through the acoustic records phonetic description on the tones and disyllabic tone sandhi in conducted in July 2009 and November 2010 respectively. Jiaonan dialect, and then illustrating the phonological Only one elder male’s and female’s sound were chosen from structures within the framework of Auto-segmental Phonology the six informants’ invited in 2009. The test words were from to conduct an OT analysis on the tone sandhi patterns of Fangyan Diaocha Zibiao and The Study of Shandong Dialect, Jiaonan dialect. including 160 monosyllabic words in citation forms and 130 Index Terms: Jiaonan dialect, phonetics, tone, tone sandhi, pairs in disyllabic sequences. Finally, 111 monosyllabic words OT in citation forms and 117 in disyllabic sequences are involved and taken for the next recording. The equipment used then 1. Introduction was SAMSUNG BR-1640 digital recorder. In 2011, 6 college Jiaonan, a county-level city of Qingdao, locates in the students from Jiaonan City were invited for audio recording. southeast of Shandong Peninsula. Jiaonan dialect (JND for Data recording was made by using a portable computer short hereafter) belongs to Jiao Liao Mandarin, a sub-dialect (Lenovo) and a microphone (Sennheiser PC 166) with the of the northern Mandarin family. According to Qian Zengyi correspondent sound board. The recording software was [1], JND is one representative of Dongwei Region, one of the CUHK-SIAT recording tool supplied by the Institute of four parts of Shandong dialect (namely Xiqi Region, Xilu Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). Region, Donglai Region and Dongwei Region). Up until now, The speech waveform was sampled at a rate of 16,000 Hz and Qian’s The Study of Shandong Dialect, an overall study on the resolution was 16 bit. Shandong dialect and its sub-dialects enjoys more authorities Annotation and pitch modification of the test syllables in some aspects of JND [2]. The collection of Wu Yonghuan’s were done with the help of software Praat 4.4.20 and Praat 6.0. study [3] on tones provides great reference for later studies. F0 values and durations were extracted for the first hand Focusing on tone sandhi types, many contributions which through Praat scripts provided by CASS. As pitch is based on are dedicated to the phonetic and phonological analyses in the fundamental frequency (F0) in vocal cord vibration, F0 Chinese (different dialects) have been made over the last values and durations were extracted for the first hand through thirty years. To our best knowledge, the previous studies have Praat script. Here, beginning and ending curves of an F0 explored Jiaonan tones on the basis of aural judgment and contour which are not easy to perceive by ear and do not there are all descriptive-oriented other than explanatory ones. influence the general tone, were neglected, leaving only the The main works include Wu Yonghuan [3], Jia Quanhong [4] tone-bearing sections taken into consideration. 10 points of F0 and Tangshun [5]. In their studies, the citation tones and tone values for each syllable were measured at equal intervals from changes are illustrated as in the following tables. the onset to the end of the whole F0 duration. Means of 10 points of pitch values for each tone type were obtained in Table 1. Previous descriptions on tone changes in disyllabic SPSS 13.0. sequences in JND Accordingly, the shape and mean pitch values of each tone type can be seen in Figure 1. Since the primary sources TSP Wu (2001) Tang (2007) Jia (2005) on the tones of JND adopted the five-scale system of Chao [6], I refer to the same method for convenience. T1+T1 213+213→ 21+213 214+214→ 24+214 213+213→ 42+213 T2+T4 42+21→ 55+21 53+31→ 55+31 T3+T1 55+213→ 42+213 55+214→ 53+214 55+213→ 42+213 T3+T3 55+55→ 42+55 55+55→ 53+55 55+55→ 42+55 T4+T4 21+21→ 213+21 31+31→ 214+31 T4+T1 211+213→ 42+213 (T1=yinping; T2=yangping; T3=shangsheng; T4=qusheng) Figure 1: F0 Contours of the Four Citation Tones in JND (Horizontal axis: ten points of F0; Vertical axis: five scales) 1 1 Discrepancies between our result of T2 (51) and the yinping, while a slight falling tone in front of another previous results of Wu’s and Jia’s 42 and Tang’s 53 makes Shangsheng. T3 also undergoes changes in T3+T2 distinctions. So that of T4. But 41 may lead to totally different combinations, with a falling-rising shape. When two T4 are tonal representation from that of 21 or 31 in Wu[3] and Tang adjacent, the former shows a little tendency of falling, but it [5]. The differences between the two high falling tones in our should be treated as a high level tone according to Yip’s[7] results need further explanation. statement that level tones in Chinese dialect always have a Given the four-citation-tone system of JND, there are 16 lowering tendency in the end. combinational possibilities shown in four figures below. (for convenience of further research, the neutral-tone 5 disyllabic 3. Structural Analysis compounds were examined in the experiment, but neither the phonetic analysis nor the theoretical explanation has been T2 and T4 are both high falling tones. An assumption would done yet.) be probably efficient to explain the merging of T4 into T2, for which rich evidence is available from Wu’s [3] study on discussing the splitting and merging of the origins of tonal categories in Middle Chinese system. Since tone sandhi plays a crucial role in the course of transition and the merging of some tone sandhi patterns will eventually result in the merging of the citation tones [8], it is necessary to reconsider about the tonal values of the second syllables in the disyllabic sequence, especially that of T2 and T4. Through observing the shape of the second syllables in disyllabic sequences, the following facts are available: Figure 2: T1+Tx (1) For T2 shapes, there are convex radians before the fourth point, at which begin sharp falling. 451 and 341 might be the only unlikeness. (2) T4 performs as 31 in the final position of the sequences, although the starting points are a little higher than 3 when T4 is after T2 or T3. From the aspect of co-articulation, we can say that tones of the second syllable keep constant in disyllable combinations in Jiaonan dialect. Citation tone and base tone are holding indispensable part of tone sandhi research. Citation tone and base tone are holding indispensable part of tone sandhi research [9]. It is true for the cases in which a Figure 3: T2+Tx same citation tone originates from different base tones in some Chinese dialects and then the underlying difference surfaces again in tonal sandhi form [10]. On this ground, it is reasonable to take the tones of second syllable as the base tones and underlying tones of Jiaonan dialect. Thus, six tone changes can also be well explained. In the underlying form, there are four tones, but in the surface form, T4 merges into T2. Table 2. Tonal values of four base tones Figure 4: T3+Tx Tone Type T1 T2 T3 T4 Pitch 213 51 44 31 Table 3. Tone changes S2 S1+S2 T1 T2 T3 T4 T1 42+T T+T T+T T+T Figure 5: T4+Tx T2 T+T T+T T+T 34+T S1 From the four figures above, it is proved that Jiaonan T3 52+T 213+T 42+T T+T dialect belongs to the right-syllable dominant type. The T4 T +T T +T T +T 44+T former T1 in a T1+T1 sequence changes from a falling-rising (“T” represents the unchanged ones.) shape into a high-falling one. In other forms, T1 remains relatively stable. T2 turns into a rising tone when it is followed by T4 while T2 in the other three types keeps its original forms. The only high level tone shows a quite active quality. T3 becomes into a relatively high-falling tone before 2 2 4. Tonal Representation (5c) *LEVEL: High/Lower level tones are not allowed. (5d) *X.Y ((X,Y∈{H.L},X≠Y): The final toneme and the To illustrate the tonal structure directly and clearly, Bao’s initial toneme of the adjacent syllables should be tonal representation model [11][12] is employed to serve as a identical. reasonable reference here, taking syllable as the TBU and (5e) *H.HH: The final toneme of the first syllable should not Yip’s [13] [±U] indicating the high and low registers. be high when followed by a high level tone. Six tone sandhi changes in Jiaonan dialect can be As the constraints have been assembled, the next step is to represented as follows: fix the ranking hierarchy to obtain the optimal output from the (3) [-U, LH][-U, LH] →[+U, HL][-U, LH] set of candidate outputs. One analytical strategy employed in [+U, HH][-U, LH]→[+U, HL][-U, LH] OT framework is to examine interactions of two constraints at [+U, HH][+U, HH]→[+U, HL][+U, HH] a time to get relative rankings, which can be couched in the [+U, HH][+U, HL]→[-U, LH][+U, HL] comparative tableau format introduced by Prince& Smolensky [+U, HL][-U, HL]→[+U, LH][-U, HL] [17].