The Interaction between Melodies and Tones of the Lyrics in Mandarin Folk Songs

• Main Authors: Si-en Li, 李思恩
• Other Authors: Raung-fu Chung
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/94044305899256549486

碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 英語學系 === 91 === Abstracts This thesis investigated the interaction between melodies and tones of the lyrics in Mandarin folk songs. Chinese languages, as tone languages, utilize tones to contrast meanings at lexical level. Take Mandarin Chinese as example: A syllable read with different tones will have different meaning, i.e. when ma is read as Yin-Ping (a high level tone), it means “mother”; when ma read as Yang-Ping (a rising tone), it means “hemp”; when ma read as Shang-Sheng (a falling-rising tone), it means “horse”; when ma read as Qu-Sheng (a falling tone), it means “to scold.” However, the tones of the lyrics will be replaced by the pitches of the notes in songs. Therefore, the key to the correct perception of the lyrics is depending on the conformity between melody contours and tone contours. Research questions in this thesis are: 1. When a Mandarin syllable i is sung with different-pitched level melody contours, what range of the notes will be perceived as Yin-Ping, Yang-Ping, Shang-Sheng and Qu-Sheng, respectively? 2. When the Mandarin syllable i is sung with double length, will the subjects tend to perceive the stimuli as Yang-Ping or Shang-Sheng, which are two relative longer tones in Mandarin? 3. When the Mandarin syllable i is sung with rising melody contours, will the subjects tend to perceive the stimuli as Yang-Ping (a rising tone) or Shang-Sheng (ending with a rising tone contour)? 4. When the Mandarin syllable i is sung with falling melody contours, will the subjects tend to perceive the stimuli as Qu-Sheng (a falling tone) or Shang-Sheng (beginning with a falling tone contour)? The results are: 1. Most of the subjects perceived i with level melody contours as Yin-Ping, for the subjects focused on the shape of the melodies but not exactly on their pitches. However, according to some subjects with keen sensitivity on pitches of the notes, notes ranging from mi to the octave ‘do were perceived as Yin-Ping, #re to fa as Yang-Ping, do to fa as Shang-Sheng. 2. The lengthening increased the number of the subjects choosing Yang-Ping and Shang-Sheng as corresponding tones to the lengthened notes. However, according to some subjects with keen sensitivity on pitches of the notes, notes ranging from mi to the octave ‘do were perceived as Yin-Ping, re to the octave ‘do as Yang-Ping, do to re as Shang-Sheng. 3. The subjects tended to perceive i with rising melody contours as Yang-Ping and Shang-Sheng. When the rising melody contours ended with pitch lower than mi, they were likely to be perceived as Shang-Sheng. When they ended with higher pitch than fa, they were likely to be perceived as Yang-Ping. 4. The subjects did not perceive the falling melody contour as Qu-Sheng, but perceived according to the end note of the falling melody contours. They perceived falling melody contour ending with si as Yin-Ping; that ending with la, sol and fa as Yang-Ping; that ending with mi, re and do as Shang-Sheng. This study also investigated how subjects perceived disyllable extracted from authentic Mandarin folk songs. The results are: 1. When the first tone in the disyllable is Yin-Ping or Qu-Sheng, it is suitable for higher-pitched notes. 2. When the second tone in the disyllable is Qu-Sheng, the melody contour of it has opposite direction with its preceding one. For example, T2T4 is suitable for rising-falling melody contour, T3T4 suitable for falling-rising, T1T4 can be suitable for level-level, level-rising, or level-falling. 3. When the disyllable ends with Shang-Sheng, the Shang-Sheng is suitable for a lower-pitched note in order to form a falling melody contour. The third investigation focused on the prolongation of syllables in folk songs. The results are: 1. In a syllable, the vowel is the only segment that can bearing pitched of the notes. 2. No matter in Mandarin or Southern Min folk songs, a syllable is prolonged because two (or more) different-pitched notes are mapped to the vowel. 3. According to the prolongation of Ciu and Cui syllables in Southern Min folk songs, we found that the i in Ciu is the vowel and so is u in Cui. 4. Through the investigation of yelling response and syllable contraction, we also proved that the i in Ciu and u in Cui are the vowels.