An updated typology of tonal coarticulation properties

Abstract

This study examines tonal coarticulation in Nanjing Chinese, and compares and contrasts its properties with those reported for other languages. Although many languages show similar characteristics, recent examinations of some languages have contradicted generalizations derived from previous findings. This study utilised descriptive statistics, linear mixed effects models, and Pearson’s correlation to explore the properties of tonal coarticulation in Nanjing Chinese. The results conflict with previous generalizations that carryover effects are greater than anticipatory effects. Nanjing Chinese shows a similar magnitude in these two effects, as does Malaysian Hokkein (Chang and Hsieh 2012). Moreover, in Nanjing Chinese and Malaysian Hokkein, there are no consistent results for H/L asymmetry as has been reported for other languages. These diverging findings warrant further study to enhance our understanding of the universality of tonal coarticulation properties. Based on the findings thus far, we present an updated typology of the known properties of tonal coarticulation. 本研究考察了南京方言的聲調協同發音現象，並與其他語言進行了比較。儘管許多語言表現出類似的特徵，但近來對一些語言的考察結果與先前研究的結論並不一致。本研究採用了線性混合效應模型，並計算了皮爾遜相關係數。南京方言在這兩種效應中表現出類似的幅度，與先前結論不符。此外，其高低音不對稱的特性也與其他語言不一致。 據此我們提出了聲調協同發音特性的類型學更新。