02 typological features - phoneme, tone, and intonation

8/12/2019 02 Typological Features - Phoneme, Tone, And Intonation

1/11

1

Typological Characteristics (Continued)

2.3 Monosyllabicity: morphemes or words?

Although classical Chinese appears to have been a monosyllabic language, modern

Mandarin is no longer monosyllabic. Indeed, Mandarin has a very large number ofpolysyllabic words. (Li & Thompson 1981: 14; emphasis added)

(4) xuxio school

qizi eggplant

yuq paint

pto grape

tshgun library

ksh but

jiodu proofread

fmng inventlinh join

Chinese is also often referred to as a MONOSYLLABIC language, which means thatalmost all wordscontain only one syllable (Lin 2007: 5).

Many of the languages of East Asia, including Chinese, are monosyllabic. This isgenerally taken to mean that in these languages morphemes are by and large

represented by single syllables. Actually there is probably no language in which allmorphemes are monosyllables; but in the type of language that we are referring to

here, the vast majority of morphemes do in fact consist of single syllables. This is the

case with Chinese at all stages of its development. In Modern Chinese there are manypolysyllabic words, but these almost always consist of strings of monosyllabic

morphemes: a word like din-hutelephone is made up of two morphemes meaning

electric-speech respectively: genuinely polysyllabic morpheme like zhzhuspider,

dlahang down, gdalump are decidedly in the minority. (Norman 1988: 8-9;

emphasis added)

Chinese is not a monosyllabic language if monosyllabicity refers to words;however, Chinese is indeed monosyllabic if monosyllabicity refers to morphemes.

As for English, it is not monosyllabic whether on the word level or on the

morpheme level.

2.4 Topic prominence vs. subject prominence

One of the most striking features of Mandarin sentence structure, and one that setsMandarin apart from many other languages, is that in addition to the grammatical

relations of subject and direct object, the description of Mandarin must also


2/11

2

include the element topic. Because of the importance of topic in the grammar ofMandarin, it can be termed a topic-prominentlanguage. (Li & Thompson 1981: 15)

Basically, the topic of a sentence is what the sentence is about. It always comes firstin the sentence, and it always refers to something about which the speaker assumes

the person listening to the utterance has some knowledge (Li & Thompson 1981:15)

Furthermore, a topic can always optionally be followed by a pause in speech, whichserves to set the topic, that which is being talked about, apart from the rest of the

sentence.

What distinguishes topic from subject is that the subject must always have a directsemantic relationship with the verb as the one that performs the action or exists in the

state named by the verb, but the topic need not.

(5) Zhngsn w yjng jin-guo le.Zhangsan I already see-EXP CRSZhangsan, Ive already seen (him).

(6) zhi-k sh yzi hn d.

this-cl tree leaf very big

This tree, (its) leaves are very big.

Nearly all English sentences must have a subject, and the subject is easy to identifyin an English sentence, since it typically occurs right before the verb and the verb

agrees with it in number (Li & Thompson 1981: 15-16)

In Mandarin, on the other hand, the concept of subject seems to be less significant,while the concept of topic appears to be quite crucial in explaining the structure of

ordinary sentences in the language. The subject is not marked by position, byagreement, or by any case marker, and in fact, in ordinary conversation, the subject

may be missing altogether

(7) ho lng a

very cold RF

(Its) very cold.

Chinese is a topic-prominent language and English is subject-prominentlanguage.


3/11

3

2.5 Word order

Greenberg 1966: three major groups of world languages, namely VSO, SVO, and SOV[Greenberg, Joseph H. 1966. Some universals of grammar with particular reference to

the order of meaningful elements. In Joseph H. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of

language, 2nd

edn., 73-113. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.]

Dryer 2008: http://wals.info/feature/81

Greenbergs word-order correlations: The order of the verb and the direct objecttends to correlate with the order of modified element and modifying element in thefollowing way: (a) If the direct object follows the verb then modifiers of the nouns

tend to follow the noun and modifiers of the verb tend to follow the verb. Andconversely: (b) If the object precedes the verb then modifiers of the noun tend to

precedethe noun and modifiers of the verb tend toprecedethe verb. That is, the orderof all types of modifiers in relation to their heads (the words they modify) follows the

same order as that of the verb and its direct object. (Li & Thompson 1981: 17)

(8) John-wa Tokyo-de Mary-ni at-ta.John-TOPIC Tokyo-in Mary-I.o. meet-PAST

John met Mary in Tokyo.

Correlations (Li & Thompson 1981: 18)

Features That Correlate with the Relative Position of Verb and ObjectVO Languages OV Languages

Head Modifier Modifier/Head

Verb/Adverb Adverb/VerbNoun/Adjective Adjective/NounNoun/Relative Clause Relative Clause/Noun

Noun/Possessive (of the box) Possessive/Noun

Other CorrelationsAuxiliary/Verb (can, have) Verb/Auxiliary

Preposition/Noun Noun/PostpositionNo sentence-final question particle Sentence-final question particle

(Apostposition in an OV language may be a case suffix , or it may signal the same

kinds of semantic relationships as do prepositions in VO languages, namely, location,possession, direction, and the like.)

Li & Thompson (1981: 19): Mandarin is not an easy language to classify in terms ofword order, for three reasons.


4/11

4

o First, the notion of subject is not a structurally well-defined one in the grammarof Mandarin. the basic structure of sentences can be more insightfully

described in terms of the topic-comment relation rather than in terms of thesubject-predicate relation.

o

A second and closely related fact is that the order in which basic words andphrases occur is governed to a large extent by considerations of meaning [e.g.definiteness] rather than of grammatical functions. This means that sentences with

verb at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end can be found in Mandarin.

o Third, whether it is taken to be verb medial or verb final, Mandarin isinconsistent with respect to the features that correlate with VO or OV order

according to Greenbergs typological scheme. For example, sample texts reveal agreater number of VO than OV sentences, yet modifiers must precede their heads,

which is an OV feature.

Mandarin can be seen to have some of the features of an SOV language and some ofthose of an SVO language, with more of the former than of the latter (Li &

Thompson 1981: 23)

SOV and SVO Features of Mandarin (Li & Thompson 1981: 24)SVO Language Features SOV Language Features

VO sentences occur OV sentences occurprepositions exist Prepositional phrases precede the V, except

for time and place phrasesauxiliaries precede the V Postpositions exist

complex sentences are almost always SVO Relative clauses precede the head nounGenitive phrases precede the head noun

Aspect markers follow the VCertain adverbials precede the V

there are VSO languages, SVO languages, SOV languages, and languages forwhich no basic word order can be established. Mandarin appears to be in this lastcategory. (Li & Thompson 1981: 26)

However, according to Sun & Givn (1985), Mandarin is a typical VO language interms of text distribution of VO and OV order. OV appears at the level of about 10%in text, and this is true for both definite and indefinite objects.

[Sun, Chao-Fen & Talmy Givn. 1985. On the so-called word order in Mandarin

Chinese: A quantified text study and its implications.Language61. 329-351.]

Therefore, as far as the distribution of VO and OV order is concerned,Mandarin is undoubtedly a VO language. Because subject typically appears in

the pre-verbal position in Chinese, Chinese can be classified as an SVO language,


5/11

5

as Dryer (2008) does in his classification (http://wals.info/feature/81). By the

same standard, English is also an SVO language.


6/11

6

Phoneme, Tone and Intonation

1. Phoneme and phonological system:

Phoneme: The smallest phonetic unit in a language that is capable of conveying a

distinction in meaning.

IPA chart: http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/fullchart.html IPA chart with pronunciation: http://www.yorku.ca/earmstro/ipa/

IPA consonants (Source: http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/fullchart.html)

Consonants in Mandarin (Source:Lin, Hua. 2001.A grammar of Mandarin Chinese,

p.25. Muenchen: Lincom Europa.)


7/11

7

Consonants in American English (Source: Hayes, Bruce. 2009. Introductory

phonology. Malden, MA; Oxford : Wiley-Blackwell.)

IPA vowels (Source: http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/fullchart.html )


8/11

8

Vowels in Mandarin (Source: Lin, Hua. 2001.A grammar of Mandarin Chinese, p.26.

Muenchen: Lincom Europa.)

frontcentral

back

unround round unround round

high i umid o

low a

Vowels in American English (Source: Hayes, Bruce. 2009. Introductory phonology.

Malden, MA; Oxford : Wiley-Blackwell.)

Differences in the phonological system:

English has dental fricatives (i.e. / /), but Mandarin does not.

With respect to plosives/stops, being voiced or not is a phonemic feature inEnglish, but in Mandarin the relevant feature is not voicing, but aspiration.

With respect to front vowels, rounding is a relevant feature to Mandarin, but notto English.

Phonological universals:

The minimal vowel system includes /i a u/. All known languages are said to have

these three vowels, or slight variations of them. All languages have stop consonants.

If a language distinguishes stops at three places of articulation, then these placesare labial, dental/alveolar (coronal), and velar.


9/11

9

2. Tone, intonation, and their functions

2.1 Tone

Definition of tone: Other than consonants and vowels, TONE is the third kind of

speech element used by languages like Mandarin to distinguish word meanings. Thatis, a change in the pitch of a word can change the meaning of a word. Therefore, tonecan be defined as the pattern of pitch changes that affects the meaning of a word.

Tone is a suprasegmental property. Generally, suprasegmental properties include

length, tone, stress, and intonation that are not inherent properties of singleconsonants or vowels but can be associated with a span of more than one segment. A

SEGMENTis a sound unit such as a consonant or a vowel.

Phonetic properties of tone: The primary acoustic correlate of tone is fundamentalfrequency (F0), the main articulatory correlate of tone is the tension of the vocal folds,

and the perception of tone depends on the perceived pitch level of F0.

F0 refers to the vibration rate of the vocal folds, i.e. how fast the vocal foldsvibrate. The faster the vocal folds vibrate, the higher the F0, and the higher the F0,the higher the pitch.

In a single cycle of vibration, the vocal folds are first brought fairly close together,

the air from the lungs then pushes through the narrow glottal opening, whichinduces a sucking effect to make the vocal folds completely closed to block the air

escaping from the lungs, but the pressure built up from the lungs eventuallybreaks apart the vocal folds, releasing a puff of air. F0 is the number of such

cycles occurring in a second. It is measured in Hertz (Hz) and one Hertz is onecycle per second.

Unlike F0, which is an acoustic term that refers to the frequency of the vocalfolds vibration of the speech signal itself, pitch is a perceptual term referringto a listeners perception of the F0 of the speech signal. A high tone has higher

pitch and higher F0 and a low tone has lower pitch and lower F0.

The pitch scale shows relative rather than absolute pitch values. Each speaker hashis or her own normal pitch range. In ordinary speech, the intonation tends to takeplace within the lower part of the speakers pitch range, but in situations where

strong feelings are to be expressed it is usual to make use of extra pitch height.

In terms of articulation, the most important factor that determines the pitch ofvoice is the tension of the vocal folds. When the vocal folds are stretched or stiff,

the pitch goes higher; when the vocal folds are slack, the pitch is lowered.

Tone bearing unit: Tone is not an inherent vowel feature. A TONE BEARING UNITis thephonological entity that a tone is associated with. The tone bearing unit in Mandarin


10/11

10

has been variously proposed to be the syllable or the rime [typically a vowel (and itsfollowing consonant that belongs to the same syllable)]. Phonetically, tone in

Mandarin is mostly manifested on the nuclear vowel of a syllable, but tonal featuresare not the same as vowel features such as high, low, front, and back that indicate

vowel quality.

Tone classification: Since tone is manifested by the pitch of the voice, each tone isclassified according to: (i) how high or low the pitch is (PITCH LEVEL); and (ii) what

the pattern of pitch change is (PITCH CONTOUR).

In terms of PITCH LEVEL, tones can be classified into high, mid, and low, and in termsof PITCH CONTOUR (the shape of the pitch changes), we distinguish LEVEL TONES

versus CONTOUR TONES. A level tone is one that has a relatively consistent pitch levelwhereas a contour tone is one that changes pitch level within a syllable.

(1) Simple classification of tone

a. Level tone: high, mid, lowb. Contour tone: rising, falling, rising-falling, falling-rising

Tones in Mandarin: Mandarin has four basic tones, which are also called citationtones, and they are phonemic, i.e. the change of tone can lead to a change of word

meaning.

(2) Tonal contrasts in Mandarin (Lin 2007: 89)

Tone number Pitch pattern Pitch Value Example

1 high level 55 [ma]55mmother

2 high rising 35 [ma]35m hemp

3 low falling-rising 214 [ma]214mhorse

4 high falling 51 [ma]51m to scold

1 low pitch

2 mid-low

3 middle

4 mid-high

5 high pitch


11/11

11

In terms of tonal classification, Mandarin has one level tone and three contourtones.

In addition to the four basic tones, Mandarin also has a neutral tone. The neutral

tone occurs in an unstressed short syllable in non-initial position in a word orphrase and it must be preceded by at least one syllable that has one of the four

basic tones. The pitch level and contour of the neutral tone varies and depends onthe preceding tone.

Lin 2007: 99: for our purposes, we can think of the syllable with a neutral toneas being toneless (without any tone) and the phonetic pitch value of the toneless

syllable results from the extension and influence of the preceding tone. Then theneutral tone is not a phonemic tone like the other four since it has no tone to

begin with and it occurs only in highly restricted contexts. (emphasis added)

However, the neutral tone can be phonemic:m(mother), m(hemp), m(horse), m(to scold), ma (question particle)

gu(pot), gu(country), gu(to wrap, to bind), gu(to cross), guo (experiential

aspect marker)

02 typological features - phoneme, tone, and intonation

Documents