A comparative study ofdownstep: downstep by phrases in German, downstep by focus in Mandarin Chinese, and downstep by tones in Yoruba.

该研究通过实验研究了降阶现象的普遍性和语言特异性。这种现象是理解许多声调语言和语调语言的实际口语旋律的核心。它位于语音表征（音调，重音，焦点，韵律成分）和语音实现（基频的实际高度;感知为句子旋律的高度1）的界面。三种语言进行了比较研究，每一种语言都代表了不同的语言类型：（a）汉语普通话，一种声调语言，表现为句法/语义焦点的结果，（B）德语，一种语调语言，表现为小句的短语韵律结构的结果，（b）德语，一种语调语言，表现为小句的短语韵律结构的结果，（c）德语，一种语调语言，表现为小句的短语韵律结构的结果。（c）约鲁巴语（Yoruba），西非的一种声调语言，对某些声调结构的反应是降音。对所有三种语言的相关问题的调查存在;比较研究承诺新的见解一般的性质，并进入其普遍和语言的特定属性的下降。

The proposed research experimentally investigates universal and language-specific properties of the phenomenon of downstep. This phenomenon is central in the understanding of the actual spoken melody of many tone languages as well as of intonation languages. It is located at the interface of the phonological representation (tones, stress, focus, prosodic constituents) and the phonetic realization (actual height of the fundamental frequency; perceived as height of the sentence melody1). Three languages are investigated comparatively, each representing a different class of languages in regard to the topic under investigation: (a) Mandarin Chinese, a tone language that shows downstep as a consequence of syntactic/semantic focus; (b) German, an intonation language that shows downstep as a consequence of the phrasal prosodic configurations of a clause; (c) Yoruba, a tone language spoken in West Africa, that shows downstep in response to certain tonal configurations. Investigations of related questions on all three languages exist; the comparative investigation promises new insights into the nature of downstep in general and into its universal and language-specific properties.