On neutral-tone syllables in Mandarin Chinese

Authors

  • Jianfen Cao Inst. of Linguistics, Chinese Acad. of Social Sci., Beijing, China

Keywords:

natural languages, speech analysis and processing, neutral-tone syllables, Mandarin Chinese, polysyllabic words, morphophonemic contrast, Chinese speech processing, phonetic nature, phonetic characteristics, multiple acoustic effects, acoustic patterns

Abstract

One of the characteristic and hard to be grasped features in Mandarin Chinese is the so-called neutral-tone (hereafter NT) syllables, which is neutralized from corresponding normal stressed syllables. Perceptually, The NT syllable sounds quite weak, and must be attached to other syllable as a dependent morpheme in polysyllabic words. However, it does not equal to the unstressed syllables in common, in stead, it forms an important morphophonemic contrast to the normal type one in bisyllabic words. Consequently, it might be of benefit to Chinese speech processing to clarify the phonetic nature of the NT syllables. Many relevant approaches from different viewpoint have been contributed before, this study is concerned in their phonetic characteristics. The discussion is based on a relevant acoustic measurements and analysis referred to a corpus of materials including over 200 of NT syllables, all of them are occurred as second morpheme in different category of neutral type bisyllabic words. The hypothesis is that the perceptual feature of the NT syllables may be caused by a combination of multiple acoustic effects, in stead of any single factor. Therefore, this kind of syllables must own their special acoustic patterns

Additional Files

Published

1992-09-01

How to Cite

1.
Cao J. On neutral-tone syllables in Mandarin Chinese. Canadian Acoustics [Internet]. 1992 Sep. 1 [cited 2026 May 12];20(3):49-50. Available from: https://jcaa.caa-aca.ca/index.php/jcaa/article/view/730

Issue

Vol. 20 No. 3 (1992)

Section

Proceedings of the Acoustics Week in Canada

License

Author Licensing Addendum

This Licensing Addendum ("Addendum") is entered into between the undersigned Author(s) and Canadian Acoustics journal published by the Canadian Acoustical Association (hereinafter referred to as the "Publisher"). The Author(s) and the Publisher agree as follows:

  1. Retained Rights: The Author(s) retain(s) the following rights:

    • The right to reproduce, distribute, and publicly display the Work on the Author's personal website or the website of the Author's institution.
    • The right to use the Work in the Author's teaching activities and presentations.
    • The right to include the Work in a compilation for the Author's personal use, not for sale.

  2. Grant of License: The Author(s) grant(s) to the Publisher a worldwide exclusive license to publish, reproduce, distribute, and display the Work in Canadian Acoustics and any other formats and media deemed appropriate by the Publisher.

  3. Attribution: The Publisher agrees to include proper attribution to the Author(s) in all publications and reproductions of the Work.

  4. No Conflict: This Addendum is intended to be in harmony with, and not in conflict with, the terms and conditions of the original agreement entered into between the Author(s) and the Publisher.

  5. Copyright Clause: Copyright on articles is held by the Author(s). The corresponding Author has the right to grant on behalf of all Authors and does grant on behalf of all Authors, a worldwide exclusive license to the Publisher and its licensees in perpetuity, in all forms, formats, and media (whether known now or created in the future), including but not limited to the rights to publish, reproduce, distribute, display, store, translate, create adaptations, reprints, include within collections, and create summaries, extracts, and/or abstracts of the Contribution.