On the Ban of a Non-final Tone Ib in Taiwan Southern Min: A Repetition Experiment

• Main Authors: Wu, Chia-Lin, 吳佳霖
• Other Authors: Hsu, Hui-Chuan
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/44734148271262711560

碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 外國語文學系外國文學與語言學碩士班 === 98 === This thesis conducted a repetition experiment on Yangping tone sandhi to test the psychological reality of Taiwanese Southern Min (TSM) and examine language transfer, exemplar theory and Optimality theory. Test materials in this experiment are disyllabic non-words in the form CaCa, accompanied with possible tone combination in Taiwan Mandarin. Each stimulus was embedded in a carrier sentence. Part I of the experiment employs a Taiwanese frame sentence; Part II, a Taiwan Mandarin fame sentence. A total of seventy-two Taiwanese native speakers were recruited as subjects in this study. Half of them spoke Mainstream Taiwanese (MT) and the rest Coastal Taiwanese (CT). Subjects from both dialects were further divided into two groups based on education background. Subjects in Group A were illiterate while those in Group B had two to six years of Mandarin education, and they respectively participated in Part I and Part II of the experiment. All subjects were also divided into different age groups. Subjects were asked to listen to the recorded stimuli from the headphone, and repeated what they heard within time limit. Experiment results showed that first, not only non-rising tone responses but also Yangping tone sandhi occurred far more frequently in Part I. Second, except the accurate input mimicking and the correct sandhi tone, the remaining tone responses were all level. Last but not least, age group had a significantly positive effect on the occurrence rate of non-rising tones for MT subjects in Part I and for all subjects in Part II. This thesis has some theoretical implications. First, it is more sympathetic with the psychological reality of Yangping tone sandhi, especially in view of results obtained from CT subjects. Second, it also witnesses language transfer. Third, that age group positively affected how subjects abided by the tonotactic ban on a non-final rising in Taiwanese corroborates the exemplar theory. Last, that level tones occurred in the repetition experiment can ensue from in the alignment effect due to faithfulness in Optimality Theory