Vowels and Diphthongs in the Xupu Xiang Chinese Dialect

Based on an acoustic analysis of speech data from 10 speakers, 5 male and 5 female, this paper describes the phonetics and phonology of the vowels and diphthongs in the Xupu Xiang Chinese dialect. Results suggest that monophthongs and falling diphthongs should be grouped together, since the production of them is a single articulatory event. Falling diphthongs are composed of a dynamic spectral target, while monophthongs are composed of a static spectral target. But rising diphthongs are sequences of two spectral targets.