Vowels and Diphthongs in Cangnan Southern Min Chinese Dialect

This paper gives an acoustic phonetic description of the vowels and diphthongs in Cangnan Southern Min Chinese dialect. Vowel formant data from 10 speakers (5 male and 5 female) show that the distribution of Cangnan monophthongs in the acoustic vowel space is of particular typological interest. Diphthong production is examined in terms of temporal organization, spectral property, and dynamic aspects. Results suggest that the production of falling diphthongs tends to be a single articulatory event with a dynamic spectral target, while the production of rising diphthongs and level diphthongs is a sequence of two spectral targets.