Dual-focus intonation in Standard Chinese

Bei Wang*, Caroline Fery

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper examines prosodic encoding of dual focus in Standard Chinese, that is, a sentence contains two foci. Five speakers read 10 SVO sentences with two lengths (short vs. long) in four focus conditions: initial, final, dual (initial+final) and neutral. Following results were obtained for the dual focus sentences: [1] There was an increase in F0 and word duration in both foci, and this to almost the same degree as their initial and final focus counterparts respectively; [2] The word following the first focus did not differ from its neutral and final counterparts in F0 and duration; [3] No prosodic boundary was inserted after the first focus and the two foci were realized in one intonational phrase. All these results held for both the short and the long sentences. From a theoretical perspective, culminativity (i.e. one metrical prominence per prosodic constituent) is violable in Chinese and focus assignment and phrasing are largely independent of each other.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2015 International Conference Oriental COCOSDA - Held jointly with 2015 Conference on Asian Spoken Language Research and Evaluation, O-COCOSDA/CASLRE 2015 - Proceedings
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages101-106
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9781467382793
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 14 Dec 2015
Externally publishedYes
Event18th Annual International Conference Oriental COCOSDA, O-COCOSDA 2015 - Held jointly with 2015 Conference on Asian Spoken Language Research and Evaluation, CASLRE 2015 - Shanghai, China
Duration: 28 Oct 201530 Oct 2015

Publication series

Name2015 International Conference Oriental COCOSDA - Held jointly with 2015 Conference on Asian Spoken Language Research and Evaluation, O-COCOSDA/CASLRE 2015 - Proceedings

Conference

Conference18th Annual International Conference Oriental COCOSDA, O-COCOSDA 2015 - Held jointly with 2015 Conference on Asian Spoken Language Research and Evaluation, CASLRE 2015
Country/TerritoryChina
CityShanghai
Period28/10/1530/10/15

Keywords

  • dual focus
  • intonation
  • phrasing

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