| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 英語學系 === 87 === There has not been much work on the neutral tone of SM. Two major traces of research on SM neutral tone can be represented by Cheng (1968, 1992, 1993, 1994) and Hung (1987, 1996, 1997). Their studies on this issue mainly take a descriptive perspective. Therefore, this study, based on Cheng''s and Hung''s observations and analyses, is an attempt to explore the nature of SM neutral tone through acoustic analyses. The aims of this study are fivefold: (a) to re-examine the environments in which SM neutral tone occurs, (b) to define the syllable domain of SM neutral tone, (c) to discuss the phonemic status of SM neutral tone, (d) to discuss the phonemic status of the glottal stop in SM, and (e) to investigate acoustic features related to SM neutral tone.
Based on the collected data and instrumental analyses, the findings of this study are summarized as follows. First, SM neutral tone indeed results from the interaction among the morphemic, syntactic, and semantic/pragmatic factors. In general, the occurrence of SM neutral tone is rule-governed and thus is predictable. Second, for neutral tones without tone spreading, theoretically, the syllable domain can be infinitely extended as long as it does not exceed one''s speech production limit. However, the syllable domain of neutral tones with tone spreading is rather fixed due to the constraint of tone spreading. Third, SM neutral tone results from loss of any of the citation tones when being unstressed at the end of a phrase, a sentence, or a tone group. Therefore, it is not necessary to treat neutral tone as an independent tone in SM phonology. Fourth, the glottal stop at the end of a syllable is argued to be an E-tone feature rather than a phonemic segment. Phonologically, the existence of the glottal stop is significant for it helps identify the tonal variation, but in phonetics, it plays no salient role in distinction. Finally, based on the acoustic study, the characteristics of SM neutral tone are: (a) losing the originally distinctive tone and being toneless, (b) having no fixed tonal values, (c) showing the downdripping of fundamental frequency, and (d) being unable to trigger tone sandhi of the stressed syllable immediately preceding the neutral tone. In brief, the salient acoustic characteristics of SM neutral tone are the declination of fundamental frequency and intensity. And the most significant indicator of SM neutral tone is the unaltered pitch of the stressed syllable immediately preceding the neutral tone.
As a preliminary study, the hope of the present study is to shed more light on the understanding of the nature of SM neutral tone.
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