Tianjin Mandarin tones and tunes

Lexical tones and intonational tunes are both mainly realised through pitch modulation. What role does intonation play in a language which has a lexical tonal contrast? Can one separate ‘tone’ from ‘intonation’? If yes, how do lexical tones interact with intonational tunes? In order to answer these questions, this thesis investigates how tone and intonation interact during production and perception in Tianjin Mandarin, by means of examining the components of different intonational tunes under the Autosegmental-Metrical (AM) Framework (Pierrehumbert, 1980), and the cues native listeners use during the tune identification process.
Chapter 1 – 3 are the introductory chapters: Chapter 1 introduces the topic of research, and sketches the three research goals for this thesis – the theoretical goal, the documentation goal, and the methodological goal; Chapter 2 addresses the theoretical foundation of this thesis – the AM theory; and Chapter 3 outlines the linguistic background of Tianjin Mandarin.
Chapter 4 presents production studies of the tune of intonational Yes/No questions (IntQ) in Tianjin Mandarin. A total of six native Tianjin speakers were recorded for monosyllabic words in isolation (Mono(ISO)) and monosyllabic words as sentence prominence (Mono(SEN)), with statement tune and IntQ tune, respectively. The results show that when a monosyllabic word is produced in isolation, the IntQ tune has a raised register, and a floating H% boundary tone at the end of the intonational phrase. When a monosyllabic word is in sentence prominence position, the IntQ tune also has a raised register, a floating H% boundary tone, as well as a H* pitch accent coming from the focus and a post-focus compression. The IntQ tune is:
[H* pitch accent + (post-focus compression) + floating H̥% boundary tone] higher register.
To further investigate how the IntQ tune is represented, three perception experiments were conducted on monosyllabic words in isolation, monosyllabic words as sentence prominence, and sentences with monosyllabic words as prominence in Chapter 5. A total of 28 native Tianjin Mandarin speakers participated in the experiments. They were asked to identify the tunes (yes-no question or statement) of the audio stimuli. The accuracy of their responses and reaction time together show that they strongly prefer the H-Rising lexical tone for IntQs, and L-Falling lexical tone for statements, which indicate that they look for the low register information during the identification of statements, and a H boundary tone for the IntQ tune.
Another important tune, chanted call (CC) tune, was also studied to further investigate the possibilities of intonational tunes in a tonal language in Chapter 6. Six native speakers’ production of monosyllabic words and disyllabic words were recorded. The results show that there is a L% boundary tone at the end of the intonational phrase, regardless of the lexical tones. Different from the IntQ data, the L% boundary tone is phonetically manifested and overrode the lexical tone contours. A H* pitch accent was found to be associated with the H of each lexical tone. Lengthening was also found in the CC tune. The CC tune in Tianjin Mandarin can be represented as follows:
[[H*]sustained]higher register + L%.

Advisor: Lahiri, A