The Prosodic Effects on Taiwan Min Tones
摘要
Two experiments were performed to observe the effects of prosody on tones in Taiwan Min. Experiment 1 was a production test in which the subjects were asked to pronounce a series of sentences in the form of 阿發 ABC 做等路, in which three syllable phrases (ABC) were filled in. The first test syllable (A) was either 賣 or 買, the sandhi tones of which are [be21] and [be55] respectively. The second syllable (B) was [l] in four sandhi tones ([55], [33], [21], [51]). The third syllable (C) was either 禮 or 螺, the base tones of which are [le51] and [le24]. F0 measurements were taken and we found that the perseverative coarticulation effect was significantly stronger than the anticipatory coarticulation effect. In Experiment 2, the stimuli produced by one of the subjects in Experiment 1 were used. The three syllables (ABC) produced in Experiment 1 were excised and pasted and submitted to the subjects for perceptual judgments. It was found that about one-third of the items were misjudged except in the case where the target syllable was the [21] tone. The cause of the misperception was found to be the replacement of the first syllable.