Articulatory Timing In Mandarin Syllables

The present dissertation makes an attempt to investigate into the articulatory timing between gestures in Beijing Mandarin syllables within the framework of Articulatory Phonology.Speech sounds in language are traditionally believed to be linearly arranged one after another (Trubetzkoy 1939; Jakobson 1941; Chomsky and Halle 1968), but recent gesture-based studies find that this is not always the case. In a CVC syllable, while the gesture of the syllable-final consonant starts after the completion of the vowel, the gesture of the syllable-initial consonant starts simultaneously with that of the vowel (Goldstein et al.2006; Xu and Liu 2006). This inspired me to ponder over the timing of sounds like the pre- and postnuclear glides and the retroflexion in Mandarin syllables. The limited number of all syllable types in Mandarin makes it possible to conduct an extensive investigation into the organization of elements in all types of Mandarin syllables, and to build a gesture-based model of syllable structure accounting for all intergestural timing relations in this language.Articulatory Phonology is a gesture-based phonological theory developed by Browman, Goldstein and their colleagues (Browman and Goldstein 1986,1988, 1989,1992,1995). They claim that gestures are basic elements in language, and syllables are formed by mutually coupled gestures. The questions raised in the previous paragraph will be investigated in the framework of this theory.The technique employed for collecting the articulatory data is the electromagnetic articulography (EMA), which can perform real-time display and recording of the movements of up to twelve sensors attached to the surface of the lips, the jaw and the tongue, and synchronized acoustical data. The participants invited are three male native Beijing Mandarin speakers all in their twenties without any speaking or hearing problems. The articulatory and acoustical data are processed by computer software MatLab and Praat. The statistical work is done by Minitab.Totally there are six kinds of elements in Mandarin syllables, including syllable-initial consonants (C), prenuclear glides (G), nuclear vowels (V), postnuclear glides (E, from'ending', distinguished from G), nasal codas (N) and the retroflexion (R). The timing relationships between six pairs of gestures, including CV, CG, GV, VE, VN and CR, are investigated. The onset-to-onset lags of these pairs are computed. Results show that these pairs can all be assumed to start simultaneously from the beginning of the syllable. By integrating these intergestural timing relationships together, we can propose an overall model of gestural organization in Mandarin syllables, that is, all the gestures in a syllable start simultaneously form the beginning of the syllable, but end one by one differently. The initial consonant C ends first, then does the glide G, the vowel V, and at last the ending E and the retroflexion R. A postnuclear glide ending and a nasal coda are not allowed to occur simultaneously in the same syllable; so there is no coupling relationship between them. The retroflexion is actually a feature all over the whole syllable.The coproduction of the C and V is in accordance with Goldstein et al. (2006) and Xu and Liu (2006). The coproduction of the G, V and E is in accordance with Ren's (1986) Truncation Model, and provides explanation for the variation of the mid and low vowels in GVE sequences and the prohibition of filling the two positions of glides with the same glide in the same syllable. The coproduction of the vowel and nasal coda is against the proposal of Goldstein et al. (2006) and Xu and Liu (2006), even though I will insist on the proposed model in the present study, based on the articulatory data of the present experiment, the aerodynamic data from Fung (2001), phonological data from synchronic and diachronic phonological processes, and the explanatory power of the present model on the variation of the vowels in VN sequences. The co-onset of the initial consonant C and the retroflexion R tells us that the retroflexion is better to be viewed as a feature on the whole syllable, but not a suffix to the end, similar to the'fusional type'.proposal in earlier analyses.The primary significance of the present study is that it is the first time the timing relationships between the productions of all kinds of elements in syllables of a language is investigated in an articulatory experiment, and an integrated model of syllable structure, which is explanatory to a lot of phonological phenomena, is proposed, bringing a better understanding of the timing relationships between the productions of the elements and relevant phonological processes in syllables of the human languages, especially Mandarin.