Tones in Mandarin Utterances

• Main Authors: Huang Yin Yi, 黃吟伊
• Other Authors: Dr. Chung Raung-Fu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 104
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/k659at

碩士 === 南臺科技大學 === 應用英語系 === 103 === The purpose of this study was to explore tones in Mandarin utterances. To achieve this goal, the researcher analyzed the related data collected from 5 participants. All the syllables occurred in sentences, like general utterances. There are fifty sentences in total, from which we get 710 single syllables. There are three questions to be answered. First, we would like to examine what difference, if any, lies in the 4 Mandarin tones in utterances. The results indicate that no great difference emerges between isolated tones (what we have in the literature) and tones in utterances. Secondly, we would to explore what effect of the neighboring tones play in terms of tonal pitches in utterances. The findings imply that phonetic implementation plays a stronger role than phonological realization in utterances. In other words, the ending contour of a tone is more or less connected to the beginning of the next tone. Finally, we would like to probe into the issue: what can be reflected in terms of tonal pitch movements? The general answer to this question is that the movements shed light on the register contour clearer on the ground that tonal behaviors are not entirely subject to average values of pitch frequencies.