The Phonetics And Phonology Of The Neutral Tone In Yiyang Chinese

This thesis aims at providing an initial acoustic description to the neutral tone in Yiyang Chinese and offering an Optimality Theoretic account of the phonetic facts obtained. Up till now, the investigation into Yiyang Chinese is perceptually-based. No literature has made a phonological analysis to the neutral tone in Yiyang Chinese.The research on the neutral tone phenomenon is an important topic in the research on Chinese phonology, especially in Chinese tonology. The analysis of the neutral tone phenomenon in different dialects helps to answer such questions as whether the contour tones are regarded as one tone unit or as the combination of different tone elements, what the tone-bearing unit and what the default tone in Chinese is.This thesis adopts autosegmental phonology and optimality theory to analyze the tone system and the neutral tone in Yiyang Chinese respectively.The experimental items include the fundamental frequency (Fo), the rime duration, the amplitude and the formants. The findings show that the Fo values of yinping yangping and rusheng are rising, that of qusheng and shangsheng are falling.The rusheng tone is shorter than the other four non-rusheng tone. The F₀ value of the neutral tone is short level. The duration of the second neutral-toned syllable is about 60-70% that of the second full-toned syllable in disyllabic expressions. The amplitude is weaker than that of the full-toned syllables. The changes in formants show that the main vowel in a neutral-toned syllable is more or less centralized.Based on the findings of the acoustic experiment, I conclude that in Yiyang Chinese, the tone system consists of five full tones besides the neutral tone. They are two level tones, two rising tones and one falling tone: yinping [34], yangping [13], shangsheng [31], qusheng [11] and rusheng [5]. The actual tone value of qusheng is [21], but it is typologically more reasonable to be analyzed as a level tone [11]; the actual tone value of rusheng is [45], but perceptually it is level and because it is rather...