An acoustic study of tone sandhi in Lishui Wu

Research output: Chapter in book / Conference proceedingConference article published in proceeding or bookAcademic researchpeer-review

Abstract

This study investigated the tone sandhi in the Lishui Wu dialect, an understudied variety of Southern Wu dialects in Zhejiang Province, China. Previous studies
showed that the tone sandhi in the Lishui dialect is mostly right-dominant, but there seem to be no uniform patterns across items and speakers. We recruited 4 elderly and 4 young native speakers of Lishui Wu and conducted acoustic analyses of the f0 of the first syllable in both disyllabic real and pseudo words. Overall, our results did not reveal consistent sandhi patterns for both real and pseudo words, but the first syllable tended to be mostly produced as
falling tones (with different slopes), with the pitch onset height conditioned by the yin and yang tones. Further analyses also found that young speakers
showed a larger similarity between the sandhi and citation tones than elderly speakers, indicating some generational changes in Lishui tone sandhi.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Prague 2023
EditorsRadek Skarnitzl, Jan Volín
Place of PublicationPrague, Czech Republic
PublisherGuarant International
Pages1945-1949
ISBN (Electronic)978-80-908 114-2-3
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2023
EventThe 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences - Prague Congress Center, Prague, Czech Republic
Duration: 7 Aug 202311 Aug 2023

Congress

CongressThe 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences
Country/TerritoryCzech Republic
CityPrague
Period7/08/2311/08/23

Keywords

  • Tone sandhi
  • Lishui Wu
  • age
  • lexicality

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