Prosodic Focus with Post-focus Compression in Lan-Yin Mandarin
نویسندگان
چکیده
Post-focus compression (PFC), the lowering of pitch range and intensity of the post prosodic focus components, is a phenomenon that has been found in various languages worldwide. The interesting findings of the presence and absence of PFC in two closely-related Mandarin Chinese languages, Beijing Mandarin and Taiwan Mandarin respectively, have brought several discussions on the historical origin and spreading of PFC. This study examined Jincheng subgroup of Lan-Yin Mandarin, a group of Mandarin Chinese mainly spoken in the North-western region of China. Acoustic analyses and statistics showed that all speakers raised their pitch and intensity of focused words, and lowered pitch and intensity of post-focused words except in one condition where post-low bouncing was present. We therefore conclude that Lan-Yin Mandarin exhibits PFC in a very similar way as in Beijing Mandarin, and this further provides support for a hypothetical major typological division among the Chinese languages.
منابع مشابه
Prosodic Focus in Hong Kong Cantonese without Post-focus Compression
A recent study reported that post-focus compression (PFC) previously found in Beijing Mandarin is absent in two related languages, Taiwanese and Taiwan Mandarin, and that PFC is beneficial to focus recognition. This paper presents the results of acoustic and perception experiments for Hong Kong Cantonese, another Chinese dialect, which show that PFC does not occur in Hong Kong Cantonese, making...
متن کاملProsodic Realization of Focus in Bilingual Production of Southern Min and Mandarin
Previously post-focus compression (PFC) - the lowering of fundamental frequency (F0) and intensity of post-focal words to below those of the same words in identical sentences with neutral focus - was found in Beijing Mandarin but not in Taiwan Southern Min and Taiwan Mandarin. This study investigated whether the presence of PFC would vary with age and language use of societal bilinguals of Sout...
متن کاملPost-focus Compression: Cross-linguistic Distribution and Historical Origin
One of the most important acoustic correlates of prosodic focus is post-focus compression (PFC) — the reduction of pitch range and amplitude of all post-focus components in an utterance. PFC has been found in many Indo-European, Altaic languages, and interestingly, also in Mandarin Chinese. Meanwhile, there have also been reports that many other languages do not have PFC, or lack any clear pros...
متن کاملClosely related languages, different ways of realizing focus
We investigated how focus was prosodically realized in Taiwanese, Taiwan Mandarin and Beijing Mandarin by monolingual and bilingual speakers. Acoustic analyses showed that all speakers raised pitch and intensity of focused words, but only Beijing Mandarin speakers lowered pitch and intensity of post-focus words. Cross-group differences in duration were mixed. When listening to stimuli from thei...
متن کاملRealization of English Narrow Focus by L1 English and L1 Taiwan Mandarin Speakers
This study compares the realization of English narrow focus by L1 speakers of English and Taiwan Mandarin. Results show that L1 Taiwan Mandarin speakers produce a much smaller increase in average F0 and amplitude for on-focus words and a much smaller decrease in average F0 and amplitude on post-focus words than L1 English speakers do. Moreover, post-focus compression of F0 range and duration, v...
متن کامل