This paper investigates the tonal variations in Honggu Chinese. The tones in isolation are investigated, as well as in different focus conditions and sentence positions. There are two tones in Honggu Chinese. T1 is a rising tone, and T2 a high tone. It is optional to pronounce T2 as high level, and it is usually convex when embedded in sentences. Growth Curve Analysis is employed to analyse the effects of focus and sentence position on the tones. Focus can influence both the pitch height and pitch contour of the tones. The pitch height of the tones can also be affected by sentence position. One of the interesting findings is that the post-focus condition combined with sentence-final position results in the incomplete neutralization of two tones. Honggu Chinese provides a good example of how tone can vary due to different factors.
Cite as: Ge, C., Li, A. (2020) Tonal variations in Honggu Chinese. Proc. Speech Prosody 2020, 245-249, doi: 10.21437/SpeechProsody.2020-50
@inproceedings{ge20_speechprosody,
author={Chunyu Ge and Aijun Li},
title={{Tonal variations in Honggu Chinese}},
year=2020,
booktitle={Proc. Speech Prosody 2020},
pages={245--249},
doi={10.21437/SpeechProsody.2020-50}
}