Acontrastive, acoustic and socio-linguistic research on mono-syllabic vowels and tones in standard Chinese of Peijing and Taiwan

本研究旨在调查和对比北京和台湾的普通话，具体而言，旨在调查两个地区的讲话者所发的声调轮廓相同的音节，主要涉及以下两点：1。两个地区的说话者之间是否存在语音和声学差异，以及存在何种差异。在每个地区的语言中可以发现什么样的社会语言变化。以上述为研究目标，我们在两个地区进行了实地调查和数据收集。83位讲话者（54位来自北京，29位来自台北）所发音的所有可能的音节类型（1275种）以声波文件的形式记录下来（一个讲话者大约一个小时）。然后，我们将每个人的声波文件分割成1275个独立音节文件，对每个音节进行声学分析，在2005年3月研究结束前，我们制作了18个多说话人的分割文件（5个北京文件和13个台北文件）。作为迄今为止的对比分析结果，我们在这里注意到以下两个关于台北标准汉语使用者的音节声调轮廓的发现是最显著和最重要的，尽管它们是基于迄今为止处理的有限数据，并且还需要用额外的剩余数据集重新评估：1)台湾普通话使用者发音的声调3轮廓的音节偶尔不稳定；约3%的音节声调轮廓近似于声调2或声调4的音节。2)超过一半的三声轮廓音节不遵循典型的三声轮廓，即所谓的快速降调的“半音”（2-1-1），而是呈现缓慢/冗长的降调模式。然而，与此同时，这些说话者将许多Tone 4音节发音为（3-1）降调，而不是其典型的（5-1）降调的轮廓模式。上述发现具有重要意义，因为它们反驳了普遍接受的理论假设，即普通话在任何方面都不存在区域差异，包括音节音调模式。他们甚至认为台湾普通话可能拥有自己的声调轮廓系统。少

This research aimed to investigate and contrast the Standard Chinese languages (Mandarin) of Peijing and Taiwan, specifically, it aimed to investigate the syllables with the same tone contour pronounced by the speakers of the two regions regarding the following two points::i.Whether and what kinds of phonological and acoustical differences can be found between the speakers of the two regionsii.What kinds of socio-linguistic variations can be found within each regional languageWith the above as the goals of the research, we made field research and data collection at the two regions. All the possible syllables types (1,275 types) of modern standard Chinese pronounced by the total of 83 speakers (54 from Beijing and 29 from Taipei) were recorded in the form of sound wave file (approximately one hour for one speaker). Then, we segmented each person's sound wave file into 1,275 individual syllable files for acoustically analyzing each syllable individually, and we made segmented files of 18 … More speakers'(5 Beijing files and 13 Taipei files) before March, 2005, the end of this research period. As the results of this contrastive analysis so far, we note here the following two findings concerning the syllable tone contours of Standard Chinese speakers from Taipei as most remarkable and important, though they are based on the limited data processed so far, and yet to be reevaluated with additional, remaining data sets:1)Syllables of Tone 3 contour pronounced by Taiwan Mandarin speakers are occasionally unstable, and about 3% of the syllables tone contours approximate those of Tone 2 or Tone 4 syllables.2)More than half of Tone 3 contour syllables do not follow the typical Tone 3 contour, i.e., the so-called"half tone"of quick tone falling (2-1-1), but show a slow/lengthy falling tone pattern. At the same time, however, such speakers pronounced many Tone 4 syllables as the (3-1) falling, instead of its typical contour pattern of the (5-1) falling.The above findings are significant in that they constitute counterevidence to the widely accepted theoretical assumption that there exists no regional variation for Standard Chinese in any aspects including its syllable tonal patterns. They even suggest that Taiwan Mandarin might possess a tonal contour system of its own. Less