The effects of prosodic strengthening on alveolar-retroflex contrasts in Beijing and Taiwan Mandarin

In Mandarin Chinese, there exist three pairs of voiceless alveolar and retroflex sibilants. Literature on Mandarin phonology generally prescribes a distinctive place contrast made in Beijing Mandarin, whereas a neutralization of the two categories is suggested for Taiwan Mandarin. However, some acoustic studies (e.g., Jeng 2006; Li 2009) have recently started to contend that retroflex neutralization in Taiwan Mandarin is not simply “on” or “off”. Many factors have been reported to greatly influence realizations of Mandarin retroflexion, for example, vowel contexts (e.g., Li 2009), prosodic prominence (Chuang & Fon 2010), and sociolinguistic factors like gender (Chuang & Fon 2010) and formality of tasks (Jeng 2006). In view of previous studies that found consonantal voicing contrasts (e.g., Cho & McQueen 2005; Cole et al. 2007) and place of articulation contrasts (e.g., Cole et al. 2007) are enhanced in prosodically prominent conditions, we hypothesize that in prosodically weak conditions, Taiwan Mandarin speakers may not show a strong place contrast, which can be perceived by Beijing Mandarin speakers as a lack of contrast. In strong prosody conditions, however, the place contrast will be enlarged or enhanced in Taiwan Mandarin.