Phonetic Correlates of Lexical Neural Tone Within Mandarin Two-character Compounds in Four Full Tones Contexts

In Mandarin two-character compound words, the syllable of second rightmost constituent may be neutralized, which in combination with first full tone as to form a neutral trochee prosody pattern [Strong-weak]. Because (character writing form) can carry more than one tone, it is possible that has both and form, semantically different. This study focused on prosodic features disyllabic compounds across four tones contexts. Our goal was investigate acoustic contrast their counterparts. For this purpose, we selected 80 minimal pairs compounds, i.e., 巴掌 /ba1zhang0/ (clap) 手掌 /shou3zhang3/ (hands), constituents present identical syllabic structure /zhang/ contrastive patterns (in example, (Tone 0) vs. 3)). One-hundred sixty target words were embedded within short carrier sentence recorded by native speakers Mandarin. The correlates paired syllables examined using Praat R-studio, including duration, pitch (F0) intensity, averaged curve are represented through point-to-point graphical comparisons. results indicate two main findings. Firstly, confirmed phonetically reduced tone. Secondly, shares some common counterparts intensity level, whereas duration range reveal barely any significant differences results, onset value mainly dependent offset preceding except for Tone 4. suggest phonetic interaction between constituent, lends support assumption comparison tones, predicted basis like offset.