The Prosody of Mandarin Chinese

The Prosody of Mandarin Chinese PDF

Author: Xiao-nan Susan Shen

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1990-01-01

Total Pages: 108

ISBN-13: 9780520097506

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Through acoustic analysis of Mandarin Chinese intonation, the author finds that the intonation baseline moves up when intonation is shifted from assertive to interrogative; therefore, two baselines and two intonation layers must be reckoned with. Sentence intonation affects the tonal values and the tonal shapes of intrinsic lexical tones, though not beyond recognition. Tonal changes prove to be closely related to sentence intonation, which is superimposed simultaneously onto the utterance as a whole. The author's findings support the position of the movability of the intonation baseline and rectify some widely spread traditional claims concerning Mandarin Chinese prosody.

The Acquisition of Chinese as a Second Language Pronunciation

The Acquisition of Chinese as a Second Language Pronunciation PDF

Author: Chunsheng Yang

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-03-22

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9811538093

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This book is the first edited book to cover a wide range of issues related to Chinese as a second language (CSL) speech, including tone and segment acquisition and processing, categorical perception of tones, CSL fluency, CSL intelligibility/comprehensibility and accentedness, and pronunciation pedagogy. Moreover, the book addresses both theoretical and pedagogical issues. It offers an essential go-to book for anyone who is interested in CSL speech, e.g. CSL speech researchers, Chinese instructors, CSL learners, and anyone interested in second language speech.

The Acquisition of L2 Mandarin Prosody

The Acquisition of L2 Mandarin Prosody PDF

Author: Chunsheng Yang

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2016-02-11

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 9027267634

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This book examines the acquisition of L2 Mandarin prosody, a less explored area in SLA. While acknowledging that tone acquisition is one of the most important aspects in acquiring L2 Mandarin phonology, the book demonstrates that phrase- and utterance-level prosody is equally important. Specifically, this book discusses the acquisition of Mandarin lexical tones and utterance-level prosody, the interaction of tones and intonation, the acquisition of Tone 3 sandhis, the temporal differences between L1 and L2 Mandarin discourse, and the relationship between intelligibility, comprehensibility and foreign accent perception in L2 Chinese. In addition, a whole chapter is exclusively devoted to the pedagogy of L2 Mandarin prosody. Studies in this book further our understanding of speech prosody in L1 and L2 and showcase the interesting interaction of phonetics, phonology, and pedagogy in SLA. This book will be of great interest to SLA researchers and graduate students, applied linguists, Chinese linguists, and Chinese practitioners.

Prosodic Morphology in Mandarin Chinese

Prosodic Morphology in Mandarin Chinese PDF

Author: Shengli Feng

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-12-14

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1315392763

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It is not entirely clear if modern Chinese is a monosyllabic or disyllabic language. Although a disyllabic prosodic unit of some sort has long been considered by many to be at play in Chinese grammar, the intuition is not always rigidly fleshed out theoretically in the area of Chinese morphology. In this book, Shengli Feng applies the theoretical model of prosodic morphology to Chinese morphology to provide the theoretical clarity regarding how and why Mandarin Chinese words are structured in a particular way. All of the facts generated by the system of prosodic morphology in Chinese provide new perspectives for linguistic theory, as well as insights for teaching Chinese and studying of Chinese poetic prosody.

Units in Mandarin Conversation

Units in Mandarin Conversation PDF

Author: Hongyin Tao

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1996-01-01

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9027226156

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Hongyin Tao provides a new way of studying grammar based on the prosodic or intonation unit in spontaneous speech, rather than focusing on the unit of the artificially constructed sentence. Some notions developed from sentence-level data often do not account well for speech data. Contrary to the notion that the basic syntactic structure of a sentence comprises of both an NP and a VP, the author shows that a Mandarin sentence in spoken discourse can consist of a lone NP or a transitive verbal expression without any explicit argument (not anaphora). The author proposes the speech unit as one with which the grammar of Mandarin can better be understood. The book is of interest to scholars of discourse analysis, syntax, prosody, typology as well as of the Mandarin language.

Prosodic Syntax in Chinese

Prosodic Syntax in Chinese PDF

Author: Feng Shengli

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-04-08

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 1351263269

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In the two volumes of Prosodic Syntax in Chinese, the author develops a new model, which proposes that the interaction between syntax and prosody is bi-directional and that prosody not only constrains syntactic structures but also activates syntactic operations. All of the facts investigated in Chinese provide new perspectives for linguistic theories as well as insights into the nature of human languages. The subtitles of the two volumes are Theory and Facts and History and Change respectively, with each focusing on different topics (though each volume has both theoretical and historical descriptive concerns). This book has shown that prosody has played a crucial role in triggering the many changes in the diachronic development of Chinese. On the one hand, this book investigates the existence of SOV structures in Early Archaic Chinese, a SVO language, and then demonstrates the role of VO prosody in causing the disappearance of the remnant structures after the Han Dynasty. On the other hand, this book surveys the historical evidence for analyses of bei passives and Ba-constructions, and then offers a prosodic analysis on the origin of these two sentence patterns in Chinese. It is claimed that prosody can be an important factor in triggering, balancing and finally terminating changes in the syntactic evolution of Chinese.

Second Language Acquisition of Mandarin Chinese Tones

Second Language Acquisition of Mandarin Chinese Tones PDF

Author: Hang Zhang

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-07-03

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 900436479X

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In Second Language Acquisition of Mandarin Chinese Tones, Hang Zhang offers a series of cross-linguistic studies to argue that there are factors influencing tone acquisition that extend beyond simple transfer of structures from learners’ native languages.

Prosodic Syntax in Chinese

Prosodic Syntax in Chinese PDF

Author: Feng Shengli

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-03-27

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 1351263226

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In the two volumes of Prosodic Syntax in Chinese, the author develops a new model, which proposes that the interaction between syntax and prosody is bi-directional and that prosody can not only constrains syntactic structures but also activates syntactic operations. All of the facts investigated in Chinese provide new perspectives for linguistic theories as well as the insights into the nature of human languages. The subtitles of the two volumes are Theory and Facts and History and Change respectively, with each focusing on different topics (though each volume has both theoretical and historical descriptive concerns). In this volume, the author first introduces the relevant theories and concepts of Metrical Phonology, Prosodic Phonology and Formal Syntax, and formulates the Government-based Nuclear Stress Rule in Chinese which can explain how and why Mandarin Chinese sentences are structured in a particular way. It is proposed that prosody can not only blocks the legitimate syntactic structures but also activates the potential syntactic operations. The former can be seen from the ungrammatical sentences that are caused by the inoperable NSR in these structures while the latter can be seen from sentences that are derived from syntactic movements which, however, are operable only when being motivated by prosody.

Intonation and Prosodic Structure

Intonation and Prosodic Structure PDF

Author: Caroline Féry

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 1107008069

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This book provides a state-of-the-art survey of intonation and prosody from a phonological perspective, for advanced students and researchers in phonology.