Tibetan Students Said Mandarin Experimental Study Of Single And Double Syllable Tone System

This study investigates the tone patterns that are conveyed by monosyllabic and disyllabic words in Mandarin which are spoken by Tibetan students from three different dialect areas. On the base of large scale inter-language speech corpus, the thesis selects 13500 monosyllabic words and 966 disyllabic words to analyze the tone features through the acoustic experiment.Firstly, the thesis adopts "monosyllabic words evaluation system" which contains these three coefficients—independence, distinction and stability to access the tone level of monosyllabic words. From these coefficients, we can evaluate the general level of tone in three Tibetan dialect areas. The results illustrate that the tone level of the Tibetan dialect areas as descending order is Kang, Weizang, Anduo. Kang and Weizang speakers can grasp 3 tones except tone3 while Anduo speakers can't grasp the four tones well. Further more, through the three parameters, the results illustrate that Anduo speakers are confused by not only tone2 and tone3 but also tone2 and tone 1.Secondly, auditoria experiment is made in this study which can identify the "monosyllabic words evaluation system", moreover, it can supply some characteristics for testing tone. Thirdly, this study analyzes individual speakers' tone system, including two different levels—higher and lower from three dialect areas. The result shows as follows:1, Kang's high level speakers can distinct four tones, in addition to tone3, and the tones with relatively high accuracy rate. The low speaker's tone2 and tone3 have vague distinction; moreover, they have similar rising tonal movement. From the view of accuracy, tone 1 and tone3 have a big gap with standard Putonghua, except tone4.2, Weizang's high level speaker can distinct four tones , and each tone's shape and value are relatively stable, only tone2 and tone3 have a low accuracy rate. The low level one's tone2 and tone3 are confused with each other, but tone4 has a good stability and a high correct rate.3, Anduo's high level speaker's tone2 has a vague distinction with tone3 and reflect a low-high tonal movement. Otherwise, the low speaker can't distinct tone1, tone2 and tone3 which their tone value accuracy shows that tone1's tonal movement is low-high, tone2's is flatter and tone3's is rising.The difference existing tone characteristic of three dialect areas described as above, not only because of phonetics, mainly lies in the influence of the speakers' mother tongue on their learning Putonghua.Finally, the thesis, investigates the tonal pattern of disyllabic words spoken by high level speakers of each dialect area, mainly focusing on the pitch contours, with respect to the tonal variation. Kang's disyllabic tonal variation is very simple, in detail, pitch contours don't change except tone3's turning to fall in the first Syllable place. Weizang's tonal and tone4 don't have any change, but tone2 and tone3 do. Tone2, combined with tone1, tone2 and tone4, its pitch couture becomes to be fall-rise shape when it is in the place of the last syllabic. Tone3, in the place of first syllabic, turns to be falling tone while rising tone in the combination of "tone3+tone3"; in the last place, it turns to be falling when combined with tone1. Anduo's tonal variation is very abundant. Obviously, in the last place, the four tones' pitch contours turn to be falling while in the first place, each tone has its own change. In detail, tone1, combined with tone1 or tone2, turns to be rising tone; tone2 turns to be level tone in the combination of "tone2+tone3" ; tone3 turns to be rising one; tone4,in the combination of "tone4+tone4", becomes to be level tone.