Intonation and Tone Sandhi in Chinese Min dialect

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Intonation and Tone Sandhi in Chinese Min dialect

• Hsiu-Hsueh Sylvia LIU
• Yuanpei University, Taiwan

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Chinese, a tone language

• All Chinese dialects feature 38 lexical tones in
  their phonological systems.
• Min dialect is mainly spoken in Fujian province,
  in the southeastern part of mainland China.
• There are several sub-dialects of Min, which are
  not mutually communicable.

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(No Transcript)
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Target dialects

• Fuzhou
• Eastern Min (Chen, 1998)
• Xiamen
• Southern Min (Xiamen dialect, 1996)
• Puxian
• (Putian County Record, Liu, Fuzhu 1994)
• (Xianyou County Record, Li, Rulong 2001)
• Field work data from four different towns in
  Puxian

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Puxian, Eastern and Southern Mins

• Eastern Min and Southern Min are two major
  representatives of Min.
• Puxian could be viewed as a dialect contact
  product of Eastern Min and Southern Min, from its
  major lexicon and phonological behaviors. But it
  also shows something different from both.
• One of the unique features of Puxian is the
  impact of intonation on its tone inventory and
  tone sandhi

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Citation tone and sandhi tone

• In most Min dialects, there are 7 citation tones
  and 3-7 sandhi tones.
• Citation tone appears in the end of a
  phonological phrase, while sandhi tone elsewhere.
• PhP ???

Citation tone
Sandhi tone
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Tone inventory in Southern Min

• 7 citation tones in Xiamen
• Each citation tone has a correspondent sandhi tone

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Tone Sandhi Table in Xiamen
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Tone Inventory in Eastern Min
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Tone Sandhi in Eastern Min

• Besides the phrasal positions, the register of
  its following tone plays a decisive role.
• /- high, low

VlsLevel ?53/ __-high ?44/
__high VcdLevel ?31/ __-low
?21/ __low Climbing ?21/
__ high ?44/ __low ?24/
__-high, -low
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Tone Inventory in Puxian
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Tone Inventory in Puxian
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Tone Inventory in Puxian

• 26 out of 35 bi-syllabic tonal combinations are
  ended in falling tones.
• No level citation tones in Puxian.
• 533, 24, 332, 52, 21
• Three falling tones 533, 332, 52

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Puxian Tone Sandhi and Intonation

• Falling or Rising-Falling is a symbolic feature
  of Puxian intonation.
• In Puxian, citation tones and bi-syllabic tonal
  combinations were modified to fulfill the
  FALLING intonation.
• 55 ? 533 33 ? 332
• 533533?24-33,
• 5555?24-55

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Puxian Tone Sandhi and Intonation

• Tone Sandhi and tonal inventory in Puxian has
  been deeply influenced by intonation.
• IG CONS an intonation group must be ended in
  falling.

Why not 24 ?242, and 35?353? too similar to
remain distinctions (332 342242)
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Features of Southern Mins Sandhi Tone
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Features of Southern Mins Sandhi Tone

• Most sandhi tones with ancient voiced onset are
  low tone.
• the influence of voiced bar ? tone lowering
• The influence of intonation is hard to detect in
  bi-syllabic tonal combinations.

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Features of Eastern Mins Sandhi Tone

• The sandhi tone value would vary with its
  following tonal registers.
• The impact of intonation?

VlsLevel ?53/ __-high ?44/
__high VcdLevel ?31/ __-low
?21/ __low Climbing ?21/
__ high ?44/ __low ?24/
__-high, -low
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Influential factors of Mins tone sandhi

• Intonation, voicing of consonants and adjacent
  tone value, all may have influence on tone
  change.
• Different languages or dialects may place
  emphasis on different parts.
• Intonation ? Puxian
• Ancient Voiced Onsets ? Southern Min
• Adjacent tone value ? Eastern Min

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Further study

• Collect longer spoken data of the three Min
  dialects to see the interaction of intonation and
  tone in a larger context.

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Thank you for your attention.

• sylviahhliu_at_yahoo.com