The Acoustic Study Of Initial Consonants In

Based on the Maonan Vocaburary Corpus from the ’Endangered Languages Corpus of Chinese ethnic minorities’ of Minzu University of China, this thesis adopts experimental phonetics method to discuss the consonants by the single syllable and double syllable words of Maonan language. Moreover, this thesis have compared Maonan Language, Sui languge and Chadong Language Documentations from Language Conservation Project as a way to supplement researchs.The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is introduction. It introduces the research background, significance, methods and corpus sources. On one hand, Maonan consonant is special and bears particular value in the Kam-Sui languages and even Kam-Tai Languages:Consonant of different pronunciation except Pre-glottal Nasal form opposition with labial and palatalization; Nasal is different from Pre-glottal Nasal. On the other hand, currently not many academic studies have been conducted on Maonan language, let alone by using experimental linguistics methods. Therefore, this study can provide a useful supplement to further the study of Maonan language.The second chapter introduces voice system of Maonan language. Maonan voice is complex. It has systematic labial, palatalization consonant, voicing opposition and two sets of nasal. In this chapter, comparison between the characteristics of Maonan and Kam-Sui languages has been conducted, the features of Plosive consonant, Palatalization consonants, Labial consonant and Nasal consonant have been listed for further comparison.The third chapter investigates the acoustic characteristics of Plosive consonant, Nasal consonant and Lateral consonant of Maonan language. The acoustic analysis of the Plosive is mainly from two aspects, the VOT and the GAP. The acoustic analysis of the Nasal, Lateral is mainly from the intensity and the length of the word. By analysing the measurement data, the features of Maonan language will be revealed.The fourth chapter discussesses several phenomena in Maonan language, including opposition between Nasal and Pre-glottal Nasal, the courses of the VOT of aspirated plosives, the acoustic characteristics of "Plug after nasal" and sound change circle, trying to explain the phenomena through pronounce mechanism and evolution of language from both internal and external aspects.The fifth chapter is conclusion. It summarizes the main viewpoints of the thesis, and puts forward the current defects and further research directions:on the basis of extensive collection of relative language corpus, combining experimental phonetics analysis and traditional methods to explain the voice phenomenon, characteristics and causes.