Focus Condition in Spontaneous Taiwanese Mandarin

• Main Authors: Ying-Hui, Huang, 黃盈惠
• Other Authors: Ho-Hsien, Pan
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/b49s99

碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 語言與文化研究所 === 93 === Two experiments are conducted to investigate the effect of focus in Taiwanese Mandarin. In production experiment, two types of sentences are used. There are 16 target nouns with all tonal combinations in Mandarin; each target noun consists of two syllables. Two focus conditions are manipulated: narrow focus on target noun, neutral focus on target noun. Three positions of target nouns are controlled: initial, middle and final. Three subjects participated and produced 288 sentences by answering precursor questions. In perception experiment, the production data of subject CBY is used as stimulus without synthesis or manipulation. The stimulus is two precursor questions and one answer as a set recorded in ABX order. There are 288 questions; subjects are tested and instructed to circle the precursor question that the utterance responds to. The results of two experiments show that in production, both duration and F0 range expansion are salient acoustic cues in spontaneous Taiwanese Mandarin, however, the parameter, F0 range expansion does not seem to be as important as duration. Besides, the vowel space formed by the F1 and F2 values of /i/, /u/, /a/ in target nouns tends to enlarge under narrow focus except for one subject. In perception, duration is the most important cue subjects use to perceive focus condition.