AN ACOUSTIC ANALYSIS OF THE VOWELS IN FUZHOU CHINESE Changhe Chen Department of Linguistics and Translation, City University of Hong Kong [email protected] ABSTRACT acoustic analysis based on speech samples from speakers (20 speakers for monophthongs and 10 for This study is an acoustic description of the vowels in diphthongs and triphthong) in their fifties in 2011. At Fuzhou Chinese produced by 10 speakers (5 males present, no published article is found for the vowels and 5 females) in their thirties. The vowels include 8 of the younger generation, but some vowel changes monophthongs .h x d 1 ` N n t., 14 diphthongs .ht th are expected. dh dt `h `t nt 1x Nx hd h` xn tn t`., and 1 triphthong This study aims at reinvestigating the vowels in .t`h. in open syllable. Compared with existing Fuzhou Chinese of speakers aged 30-39, younger studies, this study finds (i) that sometimes .d. is than those in [6]. diphthongized; (ii) that diphthong may undergo .xn. 2. METHODOLOGY change to become ZX\; (iii) that diphthong .Nx. seems to have merged with .t`h. and .1x. in open syllable, All test words are (C)V and (C)VS syllables, 2 and .dt. also shows a tendency to merge with .ht.; frequently used in daily life . For each diphthong and (iv) that the acoustic realization of diphthong .nt. can triphthong, two syllables associated with two types of be Zɞt\, ZPt\ and ZNt\ but not Znt\, and diphthong tones are used in order to investigate possible vowel alternation. But due to space limit, only results of the .hd. is ZhH\. Further studies are required to corroborate the potential sound changes. vowels in open syllables and .ht th `h `t t`h. associated with two types of tones are presented. 10 Keywords: Fuzhou Chinese, vowels, acoustic native speakers of Fuzhou Chinese (5 males and 5 realization females in their thirties) without reported speech and hearing difficulties participated in the recordings. 1. INTRODUCTION They were instructed to read the word list at normal speech rate for 5 repetitions. The words were Fuzhou, located in the southeast of China, is the randomized and produced in isolation. Praat [1] was capital of Fujian province. This study investigates the used to obtain measurements of first three formant Chinese variety spoken in the urban area of Fuzhou. frequencies (F1, F2 and F3) which were sampled at one Fuzhou Chinese is known for its tone-dependent point of the steady formant trajectories of the vowel alternation. For example, .h. always occurs monophthongs as well as the elements of the with tones .44., .51., .32. or .4.1 (Type 1 tones), diphthongs and triphthong. Thus, each vowel is while .dh. is always with tones .21., .131., or .13. characterized by one set of formant frequency data, (Type 2 tones), such as in a compound ‘ 字簿’ but the F3 values are not presented here. Some samples are excluded, due to unnatural speech, (‘exercise book’) pronounced as 53 131 . But .srh Atn . mispronunciation, or no reliable measurement when the word ‘字’ (‘word’) is produced without tone obtained. sandhi (e.g. in isolation), it is pronounced as .srdh131.. Other vowel alternations include .x. - .1x., .t. - .nt., 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .n. - .N., .1x. - .Nx. and so on. The latter (diphthongal or lower) will become the former (monophthongal or Vowel ellipses are plotted in Bark-scaled F1/F2 planes higher) during tone sandhi. with F1 on the ordinate, F2 on the abscissa and the In Fuzhou Chinese, there are 8 monophthongs .h x origin at the right top corner. Data points are represented by small IPA symbols. For elements in d 1 ` N n t., 14 diphthongs .ht th dh dt `h `t nt 1x diphthongs and triphthong, such as in .ht., the first is Nx hd h` xn tn t`., and 1 triphthong .t`h. in open symbolized as .h-t. and the second .h-t.. Ellipses of the syllable ((C)V syllable) and one more diphthong .Nt. diphthongs and triphthong (in thick lines) are only in the syllable ended with glottal stop and .>. superimposed on the planes of the monophthongs (in nasal .M. ((C)VS and (C)VN syllable). Most thin lines). descriptions of the vowels in Fuzhou Chinese is impressionistic (e.g. [4], [5], [7]) and [6] contains an 3768 3.1. Monophthongs This may result from different tones or a change in terms of temporal structure. Tonal effects on Figure 1: Ellipses of the 8 monophthongs .h x d 1 durations are conspicuous in .th `h `t t`h.. For .t`h., of males and females. t- -h ` N n t. the duration of . ` . is rather steady but the first and F2 (in Hz) 35003000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 400 last elements are lengthened or shortened as the tone 100 changes, same to the elements in .`h `t.. 200 Figure 2: Temporal structures of the diphthongs i yy i ii iiii yyyyy iii yyyyyy u uuuu 300 and triphthong of males (left) and females (right). i iiiiii yyy uuu uuuu uuu i y u uu 0% 20% 40% 60%0% 80%20% 100%40% 60%0% 80%20% 100%40% 60%0% 80%20% 100%40% 60% 80% 100% i uu u 400 32 32 e e ee ø ø ooo F .ht . .ht . e eeeee øøø øøø o ooooo 1 ee øø øø ooo o 500 21 ee e ø ø øø øø ooo ( 21 eee o o i .ht . e e ɛ øøø ɔɔɔo n .ht . ɛ ɛɛ ɔɔɔɔɔ 600 44 ɔ H ɛɛɛɛ ɛɛɛ ɔɔ ɔɔ 44 .th . ɛ ɔ ɔ z .th . ɛ ɔ 700 ) 21 aaa aa ɔ ɔ 21 .th . a aaaa 800 .th . a aa a a a aa .dh. aaa 900 .dh. 1000 .dt. .dt. 1100 32 1200 .`h32. .`h . 1300 131 .`h131. .`h . 1400 32 32 .`t . .`t . 131 131 .`t . F (in Hz) .`t . 2 .nt. 35003000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 400 .nt. 100 .1x. .1x. .hd. 200 .hd. .h`. 300 .h`. i y y .xn. iiii i y uuuu i i iii yy y y 400 .xn. iii y yy yyyyy uuuu u .tn. y F ii i ii yy yyy y uu ii ɪ ɪ ø ououuuuu 1 .tn. i i i ø o uuu 500 ɪ ɪ e øø oo ouou ( .t`. ɪ oo oo i ø n ɪ ɪe øø oooooooo .t`. ɪɪ e oo 600 e ø ø øø ø ɔ o H e eee e ø øø ɔ ɔɔ First element Transition Second element First element Transition Second element e e e ø ɔ z eee ɔɔ ɔ 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% eee ɔ ɔ 700 ) eee ø øø ɔɔ 0% First element20% 40%Transition60% Second80% element100% 0% First 20%element 40%Transition60% Second80% element100% e e ø øø ɔɔɔɔɔ 44 800 44 .t`h . e ø ɔɔɔ .t`h . ɔ 131 ɔ 900 131 .t`h . a .t`h . aa 1000 First element Transition Second element Transition Third element a aaaa First element Transition Second element Transition Third element aa 1100 First element Transition Second element Transition Third element First element Transition Second element Transition Third element aa aaa 1200 a a 1300 1400 3.2.2. Formant patterns Most vowel ellipses occupy distinct positions, For diphthongs .ht. and .th. (Figure 3-5), generally except that there are slight overlaps between and .n. there is only slight or no overlap between the of two groups of speakers as well as and of - .N. .n. .t. elements and vowels .h. and .t., except female .t h.. females. Generally speaking, four vowel heights can Figure 3: Ellipses of .ht32. (top) and .ht21. (bottom) be identified, namely high .h x t., mid-high .d 1 n., of males (left) and females (right). F (in Hz) mid-low .N. and low .`.. Regarding backness, .h x d 2 F2 (in Hz) 35003000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 400 35003000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 400 100 100 1. are front vowels, .`. is a central vowel and .N n t. x 200 200 ii iiiiiii 300 h ii iiiiii i u uuuu u i i i 300 u uuuu uuuuu uu t i iiiii uuu ii u u 400 i i uu uu uuuu are back vowels. And can also be a central vowel. iii u u u iii iii u u uuu 400 .1. F u i x u F 1 h i i u t 1 500 ( n i u 500 ( d 1 i uu n u i n 600 u H n 600 H Lip rounding contrasts in front vowels but not in the N z z 700 ) 1 d N 700 ) ` 800 800 central vowel and back vowels. Some speakers 900 900 1000 1000 1100 ` 1100 1200 1200 produced a diphthongized .d. (in test word 鞋 ‘shoe’ 1300 1300 1400 1400 51 F2 (in Hz) F2 (in Hz) 35003000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 400 35003000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 400 .d .) as indicated by dashed lines. This may result 100 100 x 200 200 from speakers’ attempt to produce the high falling ii iiiii 300 300 h iiiii u i iiii u uu u u t i iiii ii i u u i uu u u u u 400 iiiiii i iiii u u uu u uu i uu u u u 400 u F u u i x u uuu F 1 u t tone and needs further investigation. According to u u 1 500 h 500 ( n uu ( i d 1 u i n u n u u 600 600 H H z N 1 n z ) their relative positions, they are transcribed as ZDd\ 700 d 700 ) 800 N 800 ` 900 900 for males and ZdH\ for females, but it does not indicate 1000 1000 1100 ` 1100 1200 1200 1300 1300 a general gender difference.