Nasal endings of Taiwan Mandarin: Production, perception, and linguistic change

Student : Shu-Ping HuangID No. : NA3C0004Professor : Dr. Chung

Chienjer Charles LinDepartment of Anthropology & Department of Linguistics

University of Arizona

☼ Introduction

☼ Nasal endings in Mandarin &

trends of phonetic change

☼ Method

☼ General discussion Appendix References

OUTLINE

The Goal of this Paper

To investigate the phonetic variation of Chinese nasal endings by studying both speakers’ production and perception

To expand the scope of study by looking at nasal consonants /n/ and // following four different vowels [], [ə]. [], and [i].

Reading tasks at natural speed and careful speed.

Perception tasks to examine between production and perception.

INTRODUCTION

Hajek, John. (1997) Universals of sound change in nasalization.

Hajek discusses the universal patterns of nasalization in various Italian languages in relation to vowel height and vowel quality.

Li, Wen-Chao. (1999) A diachronically-motivated segmental phonology of Mandarin Chinese.

Chinese nasal endings have also undergone merging and splitting from Old Chinese to Middle Chinese, and from Middle Chinese toModern Chinese. (Li, 1999)

INTRODUCTION

Not in Reference List

Hypotheses about nasalization were made.(e.g. Chen, 1979)

Zee, Eric. (1985) Sound change in syllable final nasal consonants in Chinese. Hess, Susan. (1990) Universals of nasalization: Development of nasal finals in Wenling.

Various researchers followed up examining these hypotheses by studying nasal endings in different Chinese dialects (Zee, 1985; Hess, 1990).

INTRODUCTION

Chen, Chung-yu. (1991) The nasal endings and retroflexed initials in Peking Mandarin: Instability and the trend of changes.Some researchers also looked into nasal endings in dictionaries of Old and Middle Chinese compiled in ancient China, and showed the early traces of instability (Chen, 1991).Chen (1991) collected data fromMandarin speakers of different age groups in Taipei, and showed a tendency for –in tomerge into –ing, and for –eng to merge into –en. However, Chen (1991) only looked atnasal endings following two vowels /i/ and /ə/, and the judgments of whether a syllableended in –n or –ng were made solely depending on the experimenters’ ears.

INTRODUCTION - Research Questions - • Are prescribed nasal endings /-n/ and // distinguished in Standard Mandarin spoken in Taiwan? If yes, how are they distinguishedacoustically? If not, when (following which vowels) is the distinction lost? What do they become?

• Do natural speech and careful speech show the same patterns?

• Do listeners distinguish between /-n/ and /-/ in perception tasks? When are they and when are they not distinguished?

• Do the acoustic cues found in production help listeners distinguish /-n/ from //? Are listeners able to distinguish /-n/ and // when theacoustic analyses of production show no significant distinction? That is, are there other cues not captured in this research that facilitate thedistinction in perception?

• What does listeners’ perception tell us about the direction of phonetic change?

INTRODUCTION - Research Questions -

Nasal endings in Mandarin & trends of phonetic change

Duanmu, San. (2000) The phonology of Standard Chinese.

Standard Chinese has five vowel phonemes (Duanmu, 2000)

Chen, Chung-yu. (1991) The nasal endings and retroflexed initials in Peking Mandarin: Instability and the trend of changes.

Previous research showed that the distinction between /n/ and // in [-in]/[-i] and [-n]/[-ə˜] are the most unstable among the VN combinations in the Mandarin spoken in Taiwan and Singapore (Chen, 1991).

Chen (1991) suggestsa predominant trend of [in] merging into [i], and [ə] merging into [ən].

Method

The 1st experiment: 1) vowels /an/, /a/, /in/, /i/, /ən/, /ə/ 2) normal reading vs. slow readingSubjects: two male speakers of Taiwan Mandarin born in Taipei age 18 and 20 learn English at age 7 Material: 56 Chinese sentences and phrases were randomized into 7 lists of 8 sentences words are all falling toneProcedure: recorded in a sound-proof booth read twice, normal reading and slow reading Praat used measured for values of F1, F2 & F3

3.1.Experiment I: Reading tasks3.1.1 Subjects3.1.2 Material3.1.3 Procedure3.1.4 Results and discussion3.2. Experiment II: Perception tasks3.2.1 Subjects3.2.2 Material3.2.3 Procedure3.2.4 Results and discussion

Method

The 2nd experiment:Subjects: 3 subjects (2 females & 1 male) born in Taipei age 28, 30 and 35 learn English at age 7 Material: 56 minimal pairs and 4 filler pairs (60 in total) one of the 1st experiment male at slow speedProcedure: 3 subjects listen to the test items pick the character on the questionnaire

3.1.Experiment I: Reading tasks3.1.1 Subjects3.1.2 Material3.1.3 Procedure3.1.4 Results and discussion3.2. Experiment II: Perception tasks3.2.1 Subjects3.2.2 Material3.2.3 Procedure3.2.4 Results and discussion

References

Chao, Yuen-Ren. (1968) A grammar of spoken Chinese. Chen, Chung-yu. (1991) The nasal endings and retroflexed initials in Peking. Mandarin: Instability and the trend of changes.Chen, Matthew Y. (1975) An areal study of nasalization in Chinese.Duanmu, San. (2000) The phonology of Standard Chinese. Hajek, John. (1997) Universals of sound change in nasalization. Hess, Susan. (1990) Universals of nasalization: Development of nasal finals in Wenling.Li, Wen-Chao. (1999) A diachronically-motivated segmental phonology of MandarinChinese.Ohala, John J. (1989). Sound change is drawn from a pool of synchronic variation.Zee, Eric. (1985) Sound change in syllable final nasal consonants in Chinese.

ReviewsIntroduction

I hope to follow his literature review to find more papers.The author just mentioned other scholar’s statement, but did not describe it in details. He took literature reviews to write an introduction. I hope that he can find more papers to clarify his research. My Qs:More papers about vowel or nasalization of universal languages or more theses about Mandarin vowels or nasalization will be better?

MethodologyThe author describes it well. Only statistics, I need time to deal with it.More subjects would be better in the research. The author expands his research according to Chen (1991).My Qs:Can we follow it again to compose a similar essay?

ReferencesThere are only nine papers in references list. Three of them are not shown up in the paper. One of citation is not listed in the references.