| Native speakers of Standard Chinese have significant difficulty judging the prominence of words with tones in a consistent way. How then can metrical structure in the language be diagnosed? This study approaches the question by investigating how metrical structure interacts with other aspects of phonology, especially tone; what foot type is used in the prosodic morphology; and in which acoustic dimensions metrical structure is more faithfully reflected. It proposes that Standard Chinese has a generalized trochee system --- syllabic trochees are first created regardless of syllable weight, but when syllabic trochees cannot be created, bimoraic trochees are constructed. This hypothesis allows syllables with tones to be in unstressed positions, which makes correct predictions about the distribution of tone alternations and systematic acoustic patterns in tonal and segmental realization. The primary contribution of this study lies in disentangling the relationship among the acoustic correlates of stress, reported prominence judgments, and metrical structure. It shows that prominence judgment may diverge from metrical structure under the influence of a variety of factors, including tone and final lengthening; therefore, it is necessary to distinguish prominence judgment from metrical structure. The novelty of this study lies in the research methods that are developed to diagnose metrical structure in Standard Chinese. It draws attention to the interaction of phonology and morphology, providing new data about tone alternations triggered by metrical structure in morphological processes. It also establishes a new type of phonological evidence from text setting by examining the alignment of stress in lyrics with the rhythmic patterns in the musical tune. Instead of directly requesting speakers' prominence judgments, text setting offers a window into how speakers unconsciously employ their metrical knowledge to perform a task. Phonetically, based on a large corpus study of Mandarin broadcast news speech, it investigates the realization of tones and segments relative to their tonal templates and articulatory targets in different metrical positions of words of various lengths and morphological structures. These methodologies can be extended to studies that address similar research questions. |
