1. The Phenomenon of Tone Sandhi in Taiwanese
- Author
-
Hsing-Feng, Wu
- Subjects
828.3 ,台語 ,本調 ,変調 - Abstract
The syllabic tones of Taiwanese are traditionally analysed as having two classes of pitch realizations: "本調" and "變調". "變調" refers to the tonal realizations of the syllables in a non-final positions of a prosodic unit while "本調" refers to those in the final position which may be followed by unstressed and detoned syllables called "軽声". Alternatively, the tonal sequence ending in a "本調" can be analysed as a tonally demarcated prosodic structure, which may be termed as tone groups. This phonological structure corresponds to a compound on the one hand and a syntactic phrase on the other. Nominal compounds and reduplicative compounds usually consist of one tone group while structurally complex compounds such as higher numerals are, sometimes optionally, broken into two or more tone groups. Any syntactic unit ending in a noun or a temporal adverb is followed by a tone group boundary while unstressed pronouns form a tone group with the following phrase. Some modifiers such as adverbs optionally precedes a tone boundary, which may be related to semantic phenomena such as focus reading.
- Published
- 2011