2006/12/06

Gu, Z., Hiroki M., & Hideki K. (2003). Prosodic variations in disyllabic meaningful words focused with different stress patterns in Mandarin Chinese. Acoustic Science and Technology, 24, 3, 111–119.

Presentation: Shelly
Summary: Chris

This paper investigated the relationship between semantic structures, stress patterns and prosodic correlates of Chinese disyllabic focused words and explored how stress patterns affect phonetic correlates. Results showed that the stress patterns mediated the effect of semantic structures of the focused words on the prosodic correlates, including F0 range and duration. On-stressed syllables have longer duration and higher wider F0 range. The prosodic correlates of the pre-stressed syllables are more exaggerated than those of the post-stressed ones. That is, pre-stressed syllables have increased duration and wider range of F0 while post-stressed syllables have decreased duration and narrower range of F0. Gu concluded that there are asymmetrical vowel duration and F0 range between the pre-stressed syllables and the post-stressed syllables. Furthermore, the vowel space is bigger in focal words than non-focal words.