Right-Dominant Tones in Zhangzhou: On and Through Phonetic Surface (2022)

Abstract: This study conducts a systematic acoustic exploration into the phonetic nature of rightmost tones in a right-dominant tone sandhi system based on empirical data from 21 native speakers of Zhangzhou Southern Min, which presents eight tonal contrasts at the underlying level. The results reveal that, (a) the F0 contour shape realisation of rightmost tones in Zhangzhou appears not to be categorically affected by their preceding tones. (b) Seven out of eight rightmost tones have two statistically significantly different variants in their F0 onset realisation, indicating their regressive sensitivity to the offset phonetics of preceding tones. (c) The forms of rightmost tones are not straightforward related to their counterparts in citation. Instead, two versions of the F0 system can be identified, with the unmarked forms resembling their citation values and the marked forms occurring as a consequence of the phonetic impact of their preceding tones and the F0-declining effect of utterance-final position. (d) The phonetic variation of rightmost tones reflects the across-linguistic tendency of tonal articulation in connected speech but contradicts the default principle for identifying the right dominance of tone sandhi in Sinitic languages.

## introduction the realisations of tones can be alternated when they come into contact with one other in connected speech. the process of contextually triggered tonal alternation is referred to as tone sandhi in the linguistic literature @xcite @xcite @xcite @xcite . amongst those languages where tone sandhi is prevalent, they vary considerably in the way that tones change, what has motivated tones to change, and under what domain tones are supposed to change, resulting in a dynamic and diverse profile of tone sandhi as a language phenomenon particularly. this can be straightforward illustrated by the classification of the tone sandhi system in sinitic languages, which is conventionally categorised into either right-dominant or left-dominant, depending on the position where syllables are supposed to retain the forms of their corresponding citation tones and keep the range of tonal contrasts. for example, shanghainese and many wu dialects are often reported to exhibit a left-dominant sandhi system, in which the initial syllables preserve their citation forms and syntagmatically extend the realisations rightwards over the entire sandhi domain @xcite @xcite . in contrast, other sinitic languages like southern wu and most min are classified as having a right-dominant sandhi system because the final (rightmost) syllables are assumed to remain the tonal contrasts and values of citation forms, while those of non-final tones are replaced by their corresponding sandhi forms @xcite @xcite @xcite . thus, the preservation of citation forms has been regarded as a default principle to classify the dominancy of a tone sandhi system. however, are the citation forms intactly preserved without any change? are the forms not affected by the surrounding contexts, even at the phonetic level? does not the continuous motion of vocal apparatus in connected speech production cause any effect on the realisation of tones at the dominant/prominent position? these have been open questions to be addressed because there is still a lack of systematic investigations to clarify such concerns in the literature. it is thus still far from the satisfaction that an insightful picture can be provided to shape and deepen our understanding in this regard. driven by these intriguing questions, this study is designed to explore to what extent the citation forms are preserved for those tones at the rightmost position of multisyllabic constructions. it is built upon a relatively large scale of empirical data from 21 native speakers of zhangzhou southern min that presents a typical right-dominant tone sandhi with eight tonal contrasts at the underlying level. acoustic normalisations on tonal f0 and duration are applied to abstract away variable indexical content from invariable linguistic content in speech signals, while the statistical technique of pairwise t-test is conducted to examine whether the f0 realisation of rightmost tones is affected by their preceding tones; if so, to what extent they are affected, and what conditions the variation? incorporating field linguistics, phonetics, phonology, and statistical testing gives this study a strong foundation of generalisable samples, objective instruments, and scientific patterns while helping this study achieve a higher level of generalisation and explanation. it directly fills in the research gap in the tonal study of this dialect. it also sheds important light on those asian languages that exhibit tone sandhi as an important phenomenon in their sound systems. ## zhangzhou and speech zhangzhou 漳州, romanised differently as chiang chiu or changchow, is a prefecture-level city situated in the southern fujian province of mainland china, with the latitude and longitude coordinates at 24.5130° n, 117.6471° e. it faces the taiwan strait to its east; borders the fujian cities of xiamen, quanzhou, and longyan on its east, northwest, and west, respectively, while its southwest region borders the chaozhou city of guangzhou province. zhangzhou covers an area of approximately 12,600 square kilometres, with a registered population of about 5.6 million in the 2020 census. the language spoken by native people is predominantly southern min (known as hokkien), which is mutually intelligible with southern min varieties of quanzhou, xiamen and taiwan; it has a certain degree of mutual intelligibility with teochew and leizhou southern min but is unintelligible with other chinese dialects (e.g., mandarin, hakka, cantonese, wu, xiang, and gan). mandarin, as the official language of china, is commonly used on public occasions. hakka dialect is also found but only spoken by a relatively small population living in western mountainous areas, like hua'an, nanjing, pinghe, and zhao'an counties which border a major hakka-speaking city of longyan (fccec, 1998; guo, 2014). as a consequence of long-standing maritime trade, the speech of zhangzhou, along with other southern min dialects (e.g., xiamen and quanzhou), has been spread to many regions in asia since the early 12th century and historically served as a lingua franca among chinese communities, such as singapore, malaysia, and indonesia @xcite . therefore, the locality must be clarified when conducting a rigorous linguistic study of zhangzhou's speech. the research area being concerned in this study is longwen and xiangcheng, the inner districts of zhangzhou city in fujian province. restricting research area in specific urban regions help in minimising the effects of regional variations while specifying the research aim to examine how tonal realisations in the citation and dominant contexts are related from a scientific and statistical point of view. ## zhangzhou citation tones numerous works have documented zhangzhou citation tones. however, the majority of studies are impressionistic and describe a seven-way tonal contrast @xcite @xcite @xcite @xcite @xcite @xcite . huang (2018; 2020)'s studies were principally acoustic and advocated an eight-tonal system based on the assertion that, (a) relying on one single context of citation, and a single parameter of f0/pitch is not sufficient to figure out the totality of tonal contrasts, because tonal neutralisation occurs across linguistic contexts, including the citation position; and tones that have similar f0 contour can differ significantly in other parameter. as an extension to explore the nature of zhangzhou tones in synchronic speech, this study adopts the eight-tone proposal. the pitch system of the eight tones in the citation is summarised in ## right dominance of zhangzhou tone sandhi zhangzhou presents a typical right-dominant tone sandhi system. this can be justified from three major aspects. the first significant aspect is that the realisations of those non-rightmost tones are changed to forms entirely different from their citation forms at both phonological and phonetic levels. this can be seen from tone pitch/f0 example 1 yinping mid rising [35] /kɔ/ 'mushroom' 2 yangping mid-low level [22] /kɔ/ 'glue' 3 shang high falling [51] /kɔ/ 'drum' 4 yinqu mid-high falling [41] /kɔ/ 'look after' 5 yangqu mid level [33] /ħɔ/ 'rain' 6 yinru stopped mid-high falling [41] /kɔk/ 'country' 7 yangru stopped mid-low level [221] /tɔk/ 'poison' 8 yangru mid-low level [22] /kɔ / 'snore' x+2 non-right citation example 1+2 [33] [35] /tsʰɛ 1.tɛ2/ 'raw tea' 2+2 [33] [22] /ʔɐŋ2.tɛ2/ 'black tea' 3+2 [25] [51] /tsɐ3.tɛ2/ 'morning tea' 4+2 [63] [41] /swɐ 4.tɛ2/ 'unpacked tea' 5+2 [32] [33] /ʔjɔŋ5.tɛ2/ 'have tea' 6+2 [65] [41] /sip6.tɛ2/ 'moisten tea' 7+2 [32] [221] /sik7.tɛ2/ 'colorful tea' 8+2 [32] [22] /pɛ8.tɛ2/ 'bai tea' the 34th conference on computational linguistics and speech processing (rocling 2022) taipei, taiwan, november 21-22, 2022. the association for computational linguistics and chinese language processing the 2+5 pattern as in the citation. however, the realisations are not always straightforwardly the same because the contour onsets of rightmost tones are observed as being phonetically sensitive to surrounding contexts and present variations. for example, tones 2 and 8 are realised as @xcite in the rightmost position but as @xcite in the citation. such a slight phonetic difference can be ascribed to be affected by the effect of final-position declination. the two characteristics of rightmost tones (contour shape preservation and contour onset variation) can be demonstrated in figure 4 , which plots the normalised f0 contours of the 2+x pattern. ## phonetics of rightmost tones this section discusses the acoustic property of individual rightmost tones as a function of their preceding tones in disyllabic phrases of zhangzhou speech. figure 5 plots the acoustic patterns and the clustering results of pairwise t-tests derived from empirical data from 21 native speakers, representing the central tendency of zhangzhou speech as an independent variety. 2+x right citation example 2+1 [34] [35] /tɛ2.hwɐ1/ 'camellia' 2+2 [211] [22] /tɛ2.ɗɐw2/ 'tea house' 2+3 [52] [51] /tɛ2.ɓi3/ 'dried tea' 2+4 [41] [41] /tɛ2.tjɐm4/ 'tea store' 2+5 [33] [33] /tɛ2.tsʰju5/ 'tea tree' 2+6 [41] [41] /tɛ2.sik6/ 'tea colour' 2+7 [211] [221] /tɛ2.sit7/ 'tea dessert' 2+8 [211] [22] /tɛ2.ħjɵ8/ 'tea leaf' the 34th conference on computational linguistics and speech processing (rocling 2022) taipei, taiwan, november 21-22, 2022. the association for computational linguistics and chinese language processing tone 1-yinping: all normalised f0 contours of rightmost tone 1 are rising as a function of eight preceding tones but have variation at the onset that can be justified by the pairwise t-test comparison by effect sizes. as shown on the right panel of figure 5 , the normalised f0 values representing different x+1 patterns are clustered into two groups at the 10% sampling point, with the value significantly higher after tones 1, 2, and 3 than it is after other tones. the common feature of tones 1, 2 and 3 at the non-right position is [-falling]. thus, it can be generalised that if a preceding tone has the feature of [-falling], the onset value of tone 1 is statistically significantly higher. tone 2-yangping: all normalised f0 contours of tone 2 are falling with a low-level plateau during the second half across different combinations. the pairwise t-tests reveal statistically significant but marginal differences in the f0 onset, with the values higher after tone 3 than after any other tones at the 10% sampling point. the conditioning factor appears to be contour-relevant because the phraseinitial tone 3 presents a rising trend. thus, it can be generalised that if the preceding tone has a [falling; -level] feature, the onset value of tone 2 turns out to be statistically significantly higher. tone 3-shang: the f0 contours of rightmost tone 3 consistently show a high-falling tendency across x+3 patterns. statistically, the pairwise ttest comparisons reveal no significant difference among the normalised f0 values of this tone at the 10% sampling point. this can be seen in figure 5 . the eight tonal combinations are clustered into one single net. thus, the f0 realisation of this rightmost tone 3 is unaffected by its preceding tones. this may be ascribed to its high onset value, which is high enough that made it not easy to be affected. tone 4-yinqu: the f0 contours of this tone are consistently falling across different combinations but with slight differences in the onset values. the statistical testing result reveals that its f0 values are significantly higher after tones 3 and 6 than after other tones. this can be seen from the figure that tones 3 and 6 are clustered together at the 10% sampling point. thus, the f0 onset realisation of the phrase-final tone 4 is also sensitive to the f0 offset of preceding tones. if the preceding tone possesses a feature of [+high offset] (shared by tones 3 and 6), its onset is supposed to be statistically significantly higher. tone 5-yangqu: this tone consistently presents a level contour around the midpoint across all tonal combinations. the pairwise t-testing result reveals that its onset values are significantly affected by the offset of preceding tones; as shown in figure 5 , the eight terminal nodes are clustered into two groups at the 10% sampling point. the values tested are significantly lower after tones 4, 5, and 8, which share a falling trend with a low offset. thus, the conditioning factor for its onset variation can be generalised as [falling; low offset]. if the preceding tone has a downward contour @xcite with an offset lower than the midpoint [+low offset], the onset of this tone 5 is supposed to be statistically significantly lower, and vice versa. tone 6-yinru: all normalised f0 contours of this tone are falling as a function of the nonrightmost tones but with variation in the onset height. as shown in the figure, the terminal nodes on the right panel have been clustered into two groups at the 10% sampling point, with the values being significantly higher after tones 1, 2, 3, and 6 have an offset at or above the midpoint. thus, similar to the variation in tone 5, if preceded by a tone that has a [+high offset] at or above the midpoint, the onset of this tone is supposed to be statistically significantly higher, and vice versa. tone 7-yangru: the f0 contours of this tone all present a falling tendency with a low-level plateau across x+7 patterns but also have considerable variation in onset values. as visualised in figure 5 , the eight tones on the right panel, signifying the eight combinations that the tone is assigned with, are clustered into two groups at the 10% sampling point, with the values after tones 1, 2, 3, and 6 being significantly higher than the values in another group. therefore, the f0 onset realisations of tone 7 are also sensitive to preceding tones. the conditioning factor can also be generalised as [low offset] and @xcite . if the preceding tone has a non-falling contour with an offset at or above the midpoint, featured as [-low offset] and [-falling], the onset of this tone 7 should be statistically significantly higher, and vice versa. tone 8-yangru (new tone): similar to tones 2 and 7, the normalised f0 contours of this tone are all falling in the first half but tend to be level in the second across x+8 combinations, as seen in figure 5 . the onset realisation is also regressively sensitive to the phonetics of preceding tones, with the values significantly higher after tones 1, 2, 3, and 6 than after other tones at the 10% sampling point; however, the effect appears to be marginal. similarly, the conditioning environment for the onset variations of tone 8 can also be generalised as [low offset] and @xcite . if the preceding tone is featured of [-low offset] and [-falling], the onset of this tone is supposed to be statistically significantly higher, and vice versa. ## onset variations of rightmost tones as described above, the contour shapes of rightmost tones are generally not affected by preceding tones because regardless of whether preceded by a rising, falling or levelling contour, each rightmost tone is seen having its contour shape consistently the same. however, the contour height of most rightmost tones is phonetically sensitive to the contour offset of preceding tones, causing them to have dynamic variations in f0 onset values that are tested to be statistically significantly different. this section summarises how the f0 onsets of rightmost tones are affected by the non-right ones and how their forms are related to corresponding citation values. the 34th conference on computational linguistics and speech processing (rocling 2022) taipei, taiwan, november 21-22, 2022. the association for computational linguistics and chinese language processing the same as their corresponding citation form. for example, tone 1 presents a rising contour in both the phrase-final (rightmost) position and the citation. this property to a great degree justifies the right-dominancy of the tone sandhi system in this dialect because no paradigmatic substitution occurs for the tones in this position, though they are connected with other tones within the same constructions. ## discussion as discussed, most rightmost tones have two statistically significantly different f0 onsets. incorporating the auditory observation, acoustic distribution, position-induced depressing effect, and the correlation with citation form, it is appropriate to consider the lowered f0 onset as the unmarked form while the raised one as the marked form whose occurrence is motivated by the f0 offset of preceding tone. thus, a linguistically phonetic f0 system of the rightmost tones can be derived and represented using numerical notation, with 5 indicating the highest f0 level and 1 the lowest, as summarised in the unmarked forms of the rightmost tones generally resemble their corresponding citation forms. tones 2, 7, and 8 have a lower levelling trend that can reasonably be considered a consequence of the pitch/f0 declining effect of utterance-final position. the marked forms of most tones have one degree higher than their unmarked and citation forms, which is predicted to occur as regressive assimilation to preceding tones that are featured @xcite and @xcite . the phonetic sensitivity, on the one hand, reflects the across-linguistic phenomenon of tonal coarticulation, particularly concerning the carryover effect (i.e., the influence of the preceding tones on phrase-final tones) (e.g., @xcite @xcite . such a dynamic tonal behaviour is not arbitrary. still, it reflects a continuous motion of the vocal apparatus of human beings in speech production, which can cause considerable overlapping in articulatory gestures while giving rise to diverse outputs that can be perceived and generalised in real-world data. however, on the other hand, this linguistic finding of zhangzhou right-most tones contradicts and challenges the default principle for the identification of the right-dominance of tone sandhi in sinitic languages, which considers that the right-dominant tones are straightforwardly related to their corresponding citation tones, with the citation values preserved and unchanged (e.g., @xcite @xcite @xcite ). as discussed above, a set of marked forms are statistically justified as utterly different from the citation forms. thus, tones behave far more dynamically than expected, but the behaviours are generally predictable following an intrinsic set of grammar that can be generalized and justified using scientific patterns. tone rightmost citation unmark marked 1 [34] [35] [35] 2 [211] [311] [22] 3 [52] [52] [51] 4 [41] [51] [41] 5 [33] [43] [33] 6 [41] [51] [41] 7 [211] [311] [221] 8 [211] [311] [22]