An Acoustic Analysis Of Vowel Duration In Nanjing Meilin Hakka

Speech sound has four basic parameters: quality,intensity,pitch and length.In experimental phonetics,with the aid of computer,various instruments and softwares,a waveform and a spectrogram can be obtained,which can reflect the four basic characteristics of sound.The type of waveform reflects the quality,amplitude indicates intensity,frequency represents pitch,and duration demonstrates the length of sound.Considering that previous studies of Hakka dialects mostly center on the analysis of formant frequency and vowel space,this thesis focuses on the duration of vowels in Meilin Hakka in Zhangzhou.Through Praat 5.3.84 speech analysis software,by observing the waveform,amplitude and formant frequency,the vowels are annotated to get duration data.Then by extracting and analyzing the data,this study intends to address the following three research questions:(1)What are the temporal organizations of the vowels in CV syllable in Nanjing Meilin Hakka?(2)What are the temporal organizations of the vowels in CVN syllable in Nanjing Meilin Hakka?(3)What are the differences of the temporal organizations of the vowels in CV and CVN syllable in Nanjing Meilin Hakka?In this thesis,12 speakers(6 male and 6 female)served as speakers.The speech material is a list of 296 target words.The recorded and digitalized data were then annotated manually.A total of 7160 tokens were obtained for statistical analysis.Through statistical analysis,the major findings from the data analysis are as follows:(1)In CV syllable,in terms of monophthongs,for the male speakers,there is no significant difference between the duration of a high vowel and that of a low vowel.For the female speakers,the duration of [u] as a high vowel is longer than that of [a] as a low vowel.There seems to be a certain relation between the vowel duration and vowel height.In terms of diphthongs,13 diphthongs are classified into three categories.[ai,au,eu,? u,iu] are classified as the first category.In this category,the duration of the first element is comparatively long and that of the second element is comparatively short.[oi,i?,i?,ia,ua,ui] are incorporated into the second category,in which the duration of the first element is relatively short and that of the second element is relatively long.[ie] and[u?] are listed as the third category.Their durations of onset element and offset element are similar.(2)In CVN syllable,with regard to monophthongs,for the male speakers,the difference between [a] and [i] is not manifested but there is a significant difference between [a] and [u].For the female speakers,the duration of low vowel is longer than that of high vowel,which is in agreement with the “Lehiste IVD” theory.With regard to diphthongs,five diphthongs are divided into two categories.[i? ] in the first category possesses comparatively similar durations of onset element,transition and offset element.For other four diphthongs in the second category,the duration of the second element is the longest,followed by that of the transition,and that of the first element is the shortest.(3)Through statistical analysis,it is found that the nasal finals have an effect on the durations of the monophthongs and diphthongs.The durations of vowels in CVN syllable are shorter than those of the corresponding vowels in CV syllable.Besides,compared with the CV syllable,the duration of each component in CVN syllable is re-adjusted.It reveals the duration-compensation mechanism in a syllable in Chinese dialects.Besides,in the process of annotation,it is found that the durations of the first element [u] in [ua] and [ui] between older female speakers and younger female speakers are distinctly different.