A Nonlinear Analysis Of The Tonal System In Yiyang Dialect

There is no dearth of studies of tonal system in Mandarin Chinese and other Chinese dialects. However, there is considerable divergence of opinions as to the status of the medial, whether the tone-bearing unit (TBU) is the syllable or a smaller phonological unit, etc. The research of checked tone is quite weak, this paper is trying to study the checked tone to analyse the TBU and the underlying tonal system in Yiyang within the nonlinear theory in autosegmental phonology. Our analysis is based on the premise that pitch value has direct relation to syllabic structure.We propose that the medial in Yiyang should be considered as a part of the onset, after exposing their behavior in phonetic system, viz the co-occurrence restrictions between segments, the rhyme of ballads and poems, and the word-building of Shuangsheng Dieyun. The different rhyme duration of the smooth and checked syllable on the surface signifies that there is a glottal stop in checked syllable underlyingly. Within the theory of Prosodic Morphology, we prove that the TBU in Yiyang is not the segment in the rhyme. Acoustic experiment and phonological analysis certify that the TBU is the sonorant in the rhyme. The tone melody of tone Ib (yangping) and checked tone is rising, there is a glottal stop in checked syllable underlying, which justify that there is only one rising tone underlyingly in Yiyang, namely tone Ib. If the tone is linked to the TBU in the smooth syllable, it remains unchanged on the surface; if the tone is associated with the TBU in the checked syllable, it becomes the checked tone. This is because the syllable-final glottal stop in checked syllable, which is not the sonorant, does not bear any tone, in its derivation to the surface, it is inclined to drop, which makes the fundamental frequency (F₀) of the sonorant in the rhyme higher and rising sharply.Through exposing the essence of checked tone, this paper testifies that there are only two tonal features underlyingly in Yiyang, which supports the supposition that underlyingly there are two tonal features H (high) and L (low) in Chinese. I put forward that the TBU in Chinese may be the sonorant in the rhyme, besides the syllable and the segment in the rhyme.