Neutral Tone in Changde Mandarin
Abstract
This paper discusses the phonetics and phonology of tones in Changde Mandarin and focuses on neutral tone in disyllabic words. Acoustic realizations of both citation and neutral tones are examined in terms of fundamental frequencies (F0), duration, and intensity. And phonetic and phonological descriptions are given on the basis of acoustic data. Acoustic data from 12 speakers show that Changde Mandarin has four lexical tones that distinguish in contour, namely level versus rising, and pitch height, namely high versus low. Neutral tone in Changde Mandarin is different from that in Beijing Mandarin or Standard Chinese. Neutral tone in Changde Mandarin is a reduced form of its citation tone, which is produced with a neutralized pitch height, and a significantly shorter duration and weaker intensity than the control.