Pan, H-H. (2008). Focus and Taiwanese unchecked tones. In C. Lee et al. (eds.) Topic and Focus: Cross-linguistic perspectives on Meaning and intonation, 195–213. Berlin: Springer Press.
In this study, global factors (declination & final lowering) as well as local ones (tone & focus) were investigated to gain a better understanding of their F0 and duration representations. The purpose was to examine the surface realization of F0 and duration of Taiwanese lexical tones under different focus conditions. Specifically, the effect of narrow focus on duration, F0 range, and tonal height was studied, in addition to its interaction with syllable position in an utterance. Four native speakers of Taiwanese were recruited for the study. Stimuli recorded were 960 sentences of different word alternations and focus conditions with an identical S(2-syll)V(1-syll)O(2-syll) structure. Broad focus and narrow foci on S, V, or O position were included. Results showed that the duration of narrow focused syllables was significantly longer. In addition, a syllable’s position was found influential to the degree of lengthening: penultimate focused syllables were the longest. As for factors regarding F0, narrow focused syllables had their F0 range expanded. The tonal register contrasts (high vs. mid level/falling contrast), on the other hand, were maintained after F0 expansion. Most importantly, duration was a more consistent cue in representing focus in Taiwanese. This may be accounted for by the fact that the tonal contrast of Taiwanese are mainly on F0 height, instead of F0 contour (which is the case for Mandarin); however, further studies on other tonal languages sharing this feature are necessary to verify this.
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