An Articulatory and Acoustical Analysis of the Syllable- Initial Sibilants and Approximant in Beijing Mandarin

This paper is an articulatory and acoustical analysis of the syllable-initial sibilants and approximant in Beijing Mandarin. Palatograms and linguagrams were obtained from young adult native speakers of Beijing, male and female, using the direct method. Results show that the initial consonants which are transcribed in earlier studies [3, 4, 10] as retroflexes [§, t§, 1⁄2( ̈)] are in fact apical or upperapical postalveolar fricative [SÁ], affricate [tSÁ], and approximant [ ̈Á], respectively. Those as palatal sibilants [‚] and [t‚] are in fact laminal or anterodorsal alveolar-postalveolar or postalveolar fricative [S4] and affricate [tS4]. The frequency of the spectral energy is the highest for [s, ts], followed by [S4, tS4] and [SÁ, tSÁ] in decreasing order. The spectrum lengths of the sibilants are longer for the female speakers than the male speakers. The pattern of the Fvalues for [ Á̈ ] for the female speakers differs from the pattern for the male speakers.