Phonetic and Phonological Analysis of Focal Accents
of Disyllabic Words in Standard Chinese
1
Yuan Jia1, Ziyu Xiong2, Aijun Li2
English Department, Nankai Univerisity
Institute of Linguitics, Chinese Aademy of Social Sciences
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
2
Abstract. The article investigates the phonetic and phonological property of focal
accents conveyed by disyllabic focused words with various tonal combinations in
Standard Chinese. Phonetically, the effect of focal accents upon f0 resides in two
aspects: the manner and the condition of focal accents. Phonologically, the
distribution of focal accents is mainly concerned. Acoustic and perceptual
experiments and the underlying tonal target of focused constituents are employed
in both phonetic realization and phonological analysis. Major findings are that: f0
ranges of focused words are expanded as the H tones of both focused syllables are
raised; the f0 of the post-focus syllables are compressed obviously in the way the
H tones of Tone1 and Tone2 are lowered; the realization of accents is closely
related to the tonal target of the focused words; specifically, accents influence the
acoustic performances of tones; furthermore, the combination of H/L determines
the distribution of accents.
Key Words: focal accents; phonetic realization; phonological analysis; tonal
target
1
Introduction
In previous literature on English focus, in the phonetic aspect, Xu [1] proposed that
narrow focus is realized by expanding the pitch range of the on-focus stress syllables
and by suppressing the pitch range of the post-focus syllables while leaving the pitch
range of the pre-focus syllables intact. In the phonological aspect, Ladd has
highlighted the relation between focus and intonational nucleus placement [2] [3].
To this relation, Ladd adds the role played by abstract prominence patterns: the
nucleus signals the focus of the utterance, and the nucleus is assigned to the element
that bears the sentence stress in the sentence-level prominence pattern.
Studies of focus in Standard Chinese concentrate on the phonetic realization of
focused constituents. Xu [4] investigates the formation of f0 under the influence of
focus by examining short Mandarin sentences with systematically varied tonal
components and focuses. Results of his experiment demonstrate that the f0 range is
expanded by focus: the high points of H tones are raised while the low points of L
tones are lowered. Further, the f0 of all the words following the focus are substantially
lowered no matter whether the f0 of the focused words are raised or lowered. In
contrast with the on-focus raising and post-focus lowering, the f0 of the pre-focus
syllables are barely changed.
Although the existing studies have reported changes in f0 triggered by focus,
phonetic and phonological explorations on the Chinese disyllabic words as a whole
entities bearing focus, especially on the underlying factors constraining the
distribution of these focal accents, have still been far less than those on English focus,
and even absent at all. In this regard, we intend to examine the phonetic and
phonological property of focal accents conveyed by Chinese disyllabic focused words
with exhaustively various tonal combinations, and to offer a description of the effect
of focal accents upon f0 by the very means to reduce the tonal combination to tones in
terms of H and/or L. We further endeavor to disclose the underlying forces
constraining the distribution of the accent patterns.
2
2.1
Methodology
Experiment designing
Focused words adopted in the acoustic and perceptual experiments are all disyllabic and
with the morphosyntactic structure represented as Modifier-Head 1 , or MH for short.
Sixteen kinds of tonal combinations for the focused word of MH structure emerge from
the formula of “[Tone1+Tone1] … [Tone4+Tone4]”. And the composing syllables fall
into a couple of sets: {Gan1, Tang2, Biao3, Da4} as the set of the first syllables, and
{Ge1, Yi2, Jie3, Mei4} the set of the second. A certain focused word is thus constituted
by the combination of each member from the first set and each from the second. All
these words are set in four patterns of target sentences: 1) Jin1 Tian1 + [focused words]
+ Fei1 Dong1 Jing1; 2) Jin1 Chen2 + [focused words] + Hui2 Dong1 Jing1; 3) Jin1
Wan3 + [focused words] + Fan3 Dong1 Jing1; 4) Jin1 Ye4 + [focused words] + Qu4
Dong1 Jing1. It has been made apparent in previous studies that focal accents exert
certain effect upon f0 of the adjacent syllables. In the present study, however, the
adjacent syllables are allocated with the four tones for the purpose of deliberating the
effects imposed by the focal accents upon f0 of these adjacent syllables under every
tonal circumstance. The tones of the syllables apart from the focused words and the
adjacent syllables are set invariably in Tone1. To approach to the different types of
focus, we employ guide sentences which are mainly composed of wh-question
equivalents. The guide sentence for all broad focus expressions in this article is
invariably the interrogative of “Fa1 Sheng1 Le0 Shen2 Me0 Shi4? (What happened?)”
And for narrow focus sentences we employ the guide sentences generally formulated as
“Jin1 Tian1/Chen2/Wan3/Ye4 Shei2 Fei1/Hui2/Fan3/Qu4 Dong1 Jing1? (Who fly to/go
back to/go back to/go to Tokyo today/this morning/this evening/tonight?)”.
1
Phonetic realization of focused words is different due to the different morphosyntactic
structure of focused words (Jia, Xiong and Li) [5].
2.2
Experiment procedures
Four Standard Chinese speakers, one female and three males, ranging from 20 to 45
of age, were invited as the subjects. The recording was conducted in the
sound-treated booth at the Institute of Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences. The subjects were seated comfortably in front of the computer screen, and
the microphone was placed a hand away from mouth. During the recording, each
sentence appeared on the screen three times in random order; meanwhile, the guide
sentences were broadcast and the subject was asked to read aloud the displayed
sentences as the response to the question in normal speed without any irregular
pause. Sounds were recorded and saved directly into computer through sound
recording software as “wav” file.
The target sentences in which the clause-middle focused words have 16 kinds of
tonal combinations pronounced by a male and a female speaker were chosen for
perceptual experiment samples. As has been mentioned above, each target sentence was
recorded three times; only one was collected for each target sentence so as to reduce the
unnecessarily huge amount of data. Since in this experiment the subjects are only
required to give judgments over the patterns of the focused words in terms of Weak or
Strong, and hardly any correlation exists between the circumferential tones and the
focused words, thus, we render the tones both preceding and following the focused
words as being Tone1. Totally three females and five males were invited to participate
in the perceptual experiment. They are all standard Chinese speakers and show rather
sensitive and stable perception. In order to minimize the negative analogical effect and
perceptual fickleness, all the sentences involved were broadcast in sheer random order
through perceptual software, and each sentence was perceived by as many repetitions as
the subjects required in order to confirm their judgment. Thus, for each focused word
we had two target sentences to provide to the subjects for judgment, and finally we got
8×2=16 samples for the word with the same tonal combination. Each subject was asked
to finish the experiment individually, without any interpersonal consultation. During the
experiment, four options appeared with the icons worded as: “the first syllable strong 2 “,
“the second syllable strong”, “both strong” and “both not strong”. The subject was
expected to choose one of these options according to their decisive judgment of the
weight of the focused words in target sentences.
2.3
Data labeling and extraction
Speech was first labeled by automatic segmentation software, and then the syllable
boundaries were modified by hand. Before extracting the data, the manual
refinement of the pitch tier was conducted in order to ensure the accuracy of the data.
The data were retrieved by praat script with each syllable for 10 points, and the
duration of the utterances was normalized. Finally, SPSS10.0 was used to get the
means of f0 for each target sentence.
2
Since each focused words in our experiment consists of a couple of syllables, it is sensible to
require the subjects to tell which of the two syllables or whether both are strong, or not strong.
3
Phonetic realization of focal accents
In this part, two aspects of the effect of focal accents upon f0 will be discussed: 1)
the manner of effect, specifically taken to mean rising or lowering the f0, and 2) the
condition of effect, which means whether the lowering or rising imposes the effect
on H or L tones. The fundamental unit we apply to describe these effects is the
underlying tonal target, H or L; specifically, we render each focused syllable
separately to divide it into its original tones and in this manner to observe the
performance, rather than deal with a single syllable as the descriptive unit.
The following two figures are the mean f0 curves of sentences: “Jin1 Tian1 [Gan1]
× [Ge1, Yi2, Jie3, Mei4] Fei1 Dong1 Jing1”, focused words [Gan1] × [Ge1, Yi2, Jie3,
Mei4] are under both broad and narrow focus conditions. These sentences are adopted
for the comparison among the pitch range changes of the second syllables of the
focused words.
Fig.1& 2. f0 means of “Jin1 Tian1 [Gan1]×[Ge1, Yi2, Jie3, Mei4] Fei1 Dong1 Jing1”.
[Broad and Narrow Focus Conditions]
MH indicates that the morphosyntactic structure of focused word is Modifier-Head,
“0” means the focus type is broad and “2” is narrow focus, the following “2”
illustrates the position of the focused word is middle, the following “11” demonstrates
the tonal combination is Tone1+Tone1 and “12” is Tone1+Tone2, etc, the last “1, 2, 3 and
4” show the tones adjacent to the focused word are Tone1, Tone2, Tone3 and Tone4.
Comparison of the two graphs shows that the pitch range of the second syllable is
expanded by the focal accent, from the specific values, the pitch range of the broad focus
syllable is 104Hz-215Hz and the difference of 215 minus 104 equals to 111Hz, while this
difference of the second syllable range under narrow focus condition presents 137 Hz,
which demonstrates that the pitch range of the second syllable of the focused words is
expanded by the focal accent for 25Hz.
The following two graphs read “Jin1 Tian1 [Gan1, Tang2, Biao3, Da4]×[Ge1] Fei1
Dong1 Jing1” under both broad and narrow focus conditions from which the changes of
pitch range of the first focused syllables can be seen.
Fig. 3 & 4. f0 means of “Jin1 Tian1 [Gan1, Tang2, Biao3, Da4]×[Ge1] Fei1 Dong1 Jing1”.
[Broad and Narrow Focus Conditions]
The above two figures illustrate that the pitch ranges of the first syllables are expanded
by the focal accent, specifically, the pitch ranges of the first syllables of the broad focus
words are within 114Hz-218Hz, and the pitch ranges of the narrow focused syllables are
122Hz-240Hz, meaning that the pith range of the first syllable is enlarged by 14Hz.
The above paragraph demonstrates that the pitch range is expanded by focal accents
and the internal cause for the pitch range changes is analyzed through the direct
comparison of the focused words under different focus conditions in the following figures.
The following figure is the mean f0 curves of sentence: “Jin1 Tian1 Gan1 Ge1/Gan Mei4
Fei1 Dong1 Jing1”, focused word “Gan1 Ge1” and “Gan1 Mei4” are under both narrow
and broad focus conditions.
Fig. 5 & 6. f0 means of “Jin1 Tian1 Gan1 Ge1/Gan1 Mei4 Fei1 Dong1 Jing1”.
Examination of the above two figures reveals that focal accents lift the f0 of the H
tones of the two syllables of the focused words while the L tone of the focused
syllable resembles that of the broad focused syllable. The realization of focal accents
manifests on the two focused syllables differs from English that the raising of the
pitch is on the stressed syllable at the sentential level.
In general, the manners and conditions of the effect of focal accents upon f0 in
under-focus domain can be generalized in three aspects: firstly, the pitch range is
expanded by the focal accent; secondly, the essential cause for the expansion of the f0
range is the increase of the f0 of the H tones, which indicates that the effect imposed
by focal accents upon pitch mainly manifests itself on the H tones; thirdly, the effect
exerted by focal accent on L tones is by no means obvious and systematic; fourthly,
the manifestation of the effect of the focal accent on both of the focused syllables
characterizes the feature as being language-specific of Chinese.
Figure 7 and 8 illustrate the effect of focal accents on f0 range of the syllables in
pre-focus and post-focus domain. Target sentences in Figure 7 are under broad focus
atmosphere while Figure 8 under narrow one. The model of target sentences presents:
“Jin1 Tian1 (Chen2/Wan3/Ye4)+[Gan1 Ge1]+ Fei1 (Hui2/Fan3/Qu4) Dong1 Jing1”.
As the pitch changes imposed by focal accents are under direct discussion, the tones
of the focused words are set as Tone1.
Fig.7 & 8. f0 means of “Jin1 Tian1 (Chen2/Wan3/Ye4)+[Gan1 Ge1]+Fei1(Hui2/Fan3/Qu4)
Dong1 Jing1”.
[Broad and Narrow Focus Conditions]
Figure 7 and 8 demonstrate that the pitch range of the syllables following the focused
word is compressed remarkably by focal accents while the pitch range of the syllables
preceding the focused word remain much the same.
The intrinsic cause for the compressing of the pitch range of post-focus syllables can be
obtained from Figure 5 and the following two graphs. The follow figures are the f0 curves
of “Jin1 Chen2/Ye4 Gan1 Ge1 Hui2/Qu4 Dong1 Jing1”.
Fig.9 & 10. f0 means of “Jin1 Chen2\Ye4 Gan1 Ge1 Hui2\Qu4 Dong1 Jing1”
Generally in the above mentioned three graphs have been discussed the phonetic
realization of the focused word “Gan1 Ge1” with the differently assigned tones in
surrounding. What is unanimously represented among the four figures is that f0 in the
focus position behave in the same manner, i.e., the f0 of the H tones are remarkably raised
under the effect of the focal accents. Pre-focus f0 of the four tones, irrespective of
whether being H or L tones, show either no perceptible difference or only slight disparity
that is too erratic to be of any statistical significance. Post-focus f0, however of the H
tones of Tone1 and Tone2 are significantly compressed while those of the H tone of
Tone4 show a minor height difference over that under broad focus condition, the reason
why the H tone of Tone4 are not affected obviously is that the H tone locates itself in the
transition part, and contains the L tone. All the L tones are hardly subject to the effect of
the focal accents, with only quite negligible changes that also lack statistical importance.
4
Phonological analysis of focal accents
Within the frame of Structure-based FTA 3 theory (Ladd & Gussenhoven)[2][6], the
linguistic description of accent patterns involves two complementary but essentially
separate aspects: a statement about which parts of an utterance are focused, and a
statement about how a given pattern of focus is determined by the location of the accent.
They argue that the speaker’s decision about what to focus is subject to all kinds of
contextual influences that are difficult to identify. They also notice that once the focused
part of the utterance is specified, the accent pattern follows more or less automatically by
language-specific rules or structural principles. Therefore, in this part, the accent patterns
of focused words at the sentential level with various tonal combinations will be described
through the theoretical model of Metrical Phonology [7] based on the data obtained from
the perceptual and experiments, further, the language-specific rules for restricting the
distribution of the focal accents will be analyzed.
Table 1 demonstrates the perceptual results of accent patterns for each focused
words.
Table 1.
Tonal
Combinations
Perceptual results of focused words
Both
not
strong
Both
strong
First
Strong
Second
Strong
Total
Tone1+Tone1
3
13
16
Tone1+Tone2
2
11
3
16
Tone1+Tone3
1
4
7
4
16
Tone1+Tone4
6
8
2
16
Tone2+Tone1
5
11
16
Tone2+Tone2
6
2
8
16
Tone2+Tone3
2
4
6
4
16
Tone2+Tone4
6
1
9
16
Tone3+Tone1
3
13
16
Tone3+Tone2
1
3
2
10
16
Tone3+Tone3
4
7
5
16
Tone3+Tone4
5
1
10
16
Tone4+Tone1
5
3
8
16
Tone4+Tone2
1
6
9
16
Tone4+Tone3
1
10
5
16
Tone4+Tone4
5
1
10
16
It is can be seen from Table 1 that the first syllables of 8 focused words with the tonal
combination of “Tone1+Tone4” were judged by the subjects to be “strong”, which occupies
50% of the total number 16, whereas the “both strong” 37.5% and “second strong” 12.5%. In
light of the phonetic realization shown by Figure 6, the accent pattern of “Tone1+Tone4”
displays “s-w” relationship. Similar method can be adopted to approach the accent
3
Gussenhoven proposes the “Focus-to-Accent” (FTA) approach. In very general terms, the
FTA theory is that words and constituents in utterances can be focused for various reasons, and
that focused words and constituents are marked by pitch accents.
patterns of the other focused words with different tonal combinations, specifically, the
accent patterns of the focused words of “Tone1+Tone2”, “Tone1+Tone3”,
“Tone1+Tone4”, “Tone2+Tone3”, and “Tone3+Tone3” reflect “s-w” relationship;
while the tonal combinations of “Tone2+Tone1”, “Tone3+Tone1”, “Tone3+Tone2”,
“Tone3+Tone4”, “Tone4+Tone1”, and “Tone4+Tone3” show the opposite accent
relationship of “w-s”. The remaining five tonal combinations, “Tone1+Tone1”,
“Tone2+Tone2”, “Tone2+Tone4”, “Tone4+Tone2”, and “Tone4+Tone4”, invariably
show the “w-s” pattern through the perceptual experiment. The explanation for this
strong tendency is to be made in Table 6.
The following tables show the accents distribution pattern of 16 different tonal
combinations of MH structure from the word level to the sentential level through
metrical grids (in the grids below, Line 0 stands for syllabic level, Line 1 for lexical
level, and Line 2, sentential, “()” indicates syllable boundary):
Table 2.
Gan1
Line2
Line1
Line0
×
(s)
Phonological representation of [Gan1]×[Ge1, Yi2, Jie3, Mei4]
Gan1
Ge1
×
×
(s)
Line2
Line1
Line0
×
×
(s)
Yi2
×
(s)
Gan1
Line2
Line1
Line0
×
×
(s)
Jie3
×
(s)
Line2
Line1
Line0
Gan1
Mei4
×
×
(s)
×
(s)
Lin [8] investigates the stress pattern of Mandarin disyllabic words in citation
forms through perceptual experiment, and proposes that when disyllabic words are in
normal stress, there is no absolute fixed stress pattern. This indicates that each
syllable of MH structure words can bear word stress in citation forms.
As can be seen from the above table, the sentential accent dwells on the second
syllable “Ge1” in “Gan1 Ge1”, and the accents dwell on the first syllable in “Gan1
Yi2”, the first syllable in “Gan1 Jie3”, and the first syllable in “Gan1 Mei4”.
Table 3.
Line2
Line1
Line0
Tang2
Ge1
×
(s)
×
×
(s)
Phonological representation of [Tang2]×[Ge1, Yi2, Jie3, Mei4]
Line2
Line1
Line0
Tang2
Yi2
×
(s)
×
×
(s)
Tang2
Line2
Line1
Line0
×
×
(s)
Jie3
×
(s)
Line2
Line1
Line0
Tang2
Mei4
×
(s)
×
×
(s)
And the table above shows that the syllables on which the sentential accents occur
are “Ge1” in “Tang2 Ge1”, “Yi2” in “Tang2 Yi2”, “Tang2” in “Tang2 Jie3”, and
“Mei4” in “Tang2 Mei4”.
Table 4.
Biao3
Line2
Line1
Line0
×
(s)
Phonological representation of [Biao3]×[Ge1, Yi2, Jie3, Mei4]
Ge1
×
×
(s)
Biao3
Line2
Line1
Line0
×
(s)
Yi2
×
×
(s)
Biao3
Line2
Line1
Line0
×
×
(s)
Jie3
×
(s)
Line2
Line1
Line0
Biao3
Mei4
×
(s)
×
×
(s)
From the above table can be seen that “Ge1” in “Biao3 Ge1”, “Yi2” in “Biao3 Yi2”,
“Biao3” in “Biao3 Jie3”, and “Mei4” in “Biao3 Mei4” are the four syllables on which
the sentential accents are located.
Table 5.
Line2
Line1
Line0
Da4
Ge1
×
(s)
×
×
(s)
Phonological representation of [Da4]×[Ge1, Yi2, Jie3, Mei4]
Da4
Line2
Line1
Line0
×
(s)
Da4
Yi2
×
×
(s)
Line2
Line1
Line0
×
×
(s)
Jie3
×
(s)
Line2
Line1
Line0
Da4
Mei4
×
(s)
×
×
(s)
And this table shows that the focal accents occupy the four positions of “Ge1” in
“Da4 Ge1”, “Yi2” in “Da4 Yi2”, “Da4” in “Da4 Jie3”, and “Mei4” in “Da4 Mei4”.
We would like to explore the more unified explanation for the underlying causes for
the shifting of the stress and the specific distribution patterns shown by the tables
above. Sharing the very morphosyntactic structure of MH, the accent distribution
patterns of these words, however, vary with the various tonal combinations. The pair
of “Tang2 Ge1” and “Tang2 Jie3”, for instance, gives the accent patterns of
“strong-final” and “strong-initial” respectively. The cause for the shifting of the stress
from the first syllables to the second at the sentential level can seemingly be reduced
to the simple fact that with the first syllable being the same in both words the only
difference between them lies in the tones of the second syllables, Tone1 and Tone3
respectively. The accent distribution of above minimal pair of “Tang2 Ge1” and
“Tang2 Jie3” implies that the explanations can be sought if the traditionally termed
four tones have been reduced to the original tones marked duly by the very
permutations of H and L, that is, Tone1 is transformed into HH, Tone2 LH, Tone3 LL,
and Tone4, HL. Concretely, therefore, in “Tang2 Ge1” the syllable “Ge1” claims the
accent just because “Ge1” can be re-rendered as “HH”, compared with “Tang2” as
“LH”. “HH” overtakes “LH” in number of “H” and therefore appears strong. Similar
situation holds true for “Tang2 Jie3” in which “H” in the “LH” pattern of “Tang2”
outnumbers that of “LL” of “Jie3” and thus claims the accent. This correlation can be
attested for the patterns of the other words listed below: “Strong-initial” patterns are
found for “Gan1 Yi2”, “Gan1 Jie3”, “Gan1 Mei4” and “Da4 Jie3” because they can
be re-written respectively as “HH LH”, “HH LL”, “HH HL” and “HL LL”; another
“Strong-initial” pattern notably exists for “Biao3 Jie3”, which can be attributed to the
tone sandhi of “Biao3 Jie3 → Biao2 Jie3”, that is, “LH LL”. Correspondingly,
“Strong-final” patterns occur for “Biao3 Ge1”, “Biao3 Yi2”, “Biao3 Mei4” and “Da4
Ge1”, with the respective renderings of “LL HH”, “LL LH”, “LL HL” and “HL HH”.
However, a seemingly disturbing case emerges for five words in each of which the
combination pattern in terms of “H/L” for the first syllables is totally identical in
number of H to the corresponding second ones, as in “Gan1 Ge1” re-rendered as “HH
HH”, “Tang2 Yi2” as “LH LH”, “Da4 Mei4” as “HL HL”, “Tang2 Mei4” as “LH HL”,
and “Da4 Yi2” as “HL LH”. Solely from the perspective of “H/L” pattern the above
five words should all have the pattern in which the first and the second syllables are
equally strong. The fact both revealed by the perceptual experiment as well as
phonetic graphs 4 , however, turns out to be that it is the second syllables of the five
words that bear the sentential accents and they fall into the “strong-final” pattern.
Therefore, by permutation, then, three patterns of contrast in terms of the amounts
of H tones come into being. And they are, of the two syllables: 1) the first with more
H tones, 2) the second with more H tones, and 3) each containing equally numbered H
tones. The result of “more Hs claiming strong” can be explained through the phonetic
analysis of focal accents that the realization of the focal accents mainly manifested on
the H tones of the focused syllables. What, then, accounts for the pattern with “H/L”
pattern being equal? Pierrehumbert [9] proposes that when two stressed syllables
sound equal in pitch, the second is actually lower and when the perception of pitch is
equal in height the second syllable bears more stress. In view of this, the height of the
pitch of the H tones is the crucial factor accounting for the accent patterns of the word
with equal number of H tones.
The following table provides the mean maximum pitch values of the H tones of the
focused words under narrow focus condition with the tonal combinations of
Tone1+Tone1, Tone2+Tone2, Tone2+Tone4, Tone4+Tone2 and Tone4+Tone4 (H1
indicates the mean pitch values of the H tones of the first focused syllable and H2 is
the second, the unit for these values is Hz).
Table 6.
Tonal
Combination
T1+T1
T2+T2
T2+T4
T4+T2
T4+T4
Maximum pitch values of H tones
Tonal
Feature
HH + HH
LH + LH
LH + HL
HL + LH
HL + HL
H1 (Hz)
H2 (Hz)
237
222
179
244
242
242
231
265
242
240
The extraction of the above values of f0 under the circumstances of focus is
achieved by smoothing off the influences exerted by the tones preceding and
following the focused words, and thus by obtaining the means of the 16 focused
words, each of which contains 48 samples.
The puzzling fact can be explained from the above values that the mean maximum
pitch values of the second focused syllable are higher than the first ones in the tonal
combinations of Tone1+Tone1, Tone2+Tone2 and Tone2+Tone4. And in the tonal
combinations of Tone4+Tone2 and Tone4+Tone4 the heights of the H tones of the two
syllables nearly equals each other. All these data demonstrate that the second syllables
of the focused words of these tonal combinations bear stronger accent.
Therefore, in this part, we provide the phonological description of focused word with
various tonal combinations through the theoretical model of Metrical Phonology.
From the representation of the accent pattern of these focused words we offer the
unified explanation for the underlying causes for the distribution of the accents by the
means of re-rendering the tones of each syllable of focused word into the original H/L
tones or the combinations of these two tones. When the underlying tonal
combinations are different (this difference lies in the tonal combinations of each
syllable between the focused words), the determining role of restricting the
4
As has been discussed above, the raising of f0 is mainly manifested on the H tones.
distribution of the accents is attributed to the amount of the H tones; however, when
the underlying tonal combinations are identical, a predominant tendency exists of
being always “strong-final”. These results strongly indicate that the phonological
composition of the focused syllable is the primary cause for restricting the distribution
of the accents.
5
Conclusion
In this study, an integrated work of phonetic and phonological analysis for focal
accents conveyed by disyllabic words in Standard Chinese has largely been done.
Major findings are achieved from all the above analyses are expressed in both the
phonetic and phonological aspects: for the phonetic perspective we have: 1) in the
focus position under narrow focus condition, the pitch range of f0 is enlarged as the H
tones under narrow focus condition is significantly higher than under broad focus
condition, and L tones show on obvious differences in f0 under narrow focus condition,
if there were, from those under broad focus condition, but the differences are by no
means systematic and worthy of note. This finding, however, differs from that made by
Yi Xu [4], who argues that under focus conditions f0 of H tones becomes higher and of
L tones, lower. 2) In the positions preceding the focus, f0 range remains much the same,
whether H tones or L tones, f0 is but slightly subject to the effect exerted by the focus,
and this finding bears no considerable divergence from that of Xu [4]. 3) Extremely
significant effects imposed by the focal accents are found on the post-focus pitch range
of syllables, which slightly but notably differs from the finding made by Xu [4] that
the pitch range of f0 of the post-focus syllables is considerably compressed by the
focus. Our study, however, offers a more refined discovery that the focal accents do
lower the f0 of the H tones of Tone1 and Tone2, but exert only insignificant effects on
the f0 of the L tones of Tone2, Tone3 and Tone4 and of the H tones of Tone4. For
phonological perspective, the underlying causes for the distribution of the focal accent
are explored through the phonological description of the accent patterns of the focused
words. The manifestation and distribution of focal accents are closely related with the
underlying tonal target of the focused words that the realization of the tones is
influenced by accents and the phonological composition of the focused constituents
determines the distribution of the focal accents. We would therefore agree with Ladd
[3] that once focus is identified in accordance with the speaker’s intent and with the
context, it is the language-specific structural factors that determine the accent
distribution. In Standard Chinese, the phonological combination of the focused
constituents is the primary causes that determine the distribution of the focal accents,
this analysis also identical with Chomsky [10] that phonological characteristics
determine the nature of the accents.
6
Acknowledgements
This research is supported by CASS key projects “Fundamental Speech Corpus and
Pitch Pattern of Standard Chinese” YZDN50-05050 and “Research on Phonetics and
Spontaneous Speech Processing”.
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