This paper investigates the patterns of the F0 contours for the two level tones [44, 11], two falling tones [52, 31] and two short tones [5, 1] on syllables that associated with vowels [i, a, u] in Meixian Hakka, which is one of the Chinese dialects. Results show that (i) the F0 contours of the two level tones are level as expected and the difference in F0 value between the two tones is around 50 Hz; (ii) the F0 values of the ending points of the F0 contours for the two falling tones are similar. The two tones are acoustically differentiated by the starting point, the highest point and the shape of the F0 contour; (iii) the high short tones tend to be level, whereas the low short tones tend to be falling; and (iv) the differences between the F0 patterns of the tones on syllables with different vowels are due to the influence of the initial consonants.
Cite as: Cheung, Y.-M. (2006) The F0 patterns of tones in Hakka Chinese. Proc. 2nd International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages (TAL 2006), 43-46
@inproceedings{cheung06_tal,
author={Yuk-Man Cheung},
title={{The F0 patterns of tones in Hakka Chinese}},
year=2006,
booktitle={Proc. 2nd International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages (TAL 2006)},
pages={43--46}
}