중국어 중첩 어휘의 경음과 경성 분석

Abstract

This article demonstrates the prosodic differences between reduplicated verbs and adjectives in Standard Chinese (hereafter SC). The second syllable of a reduplicated verb, e.g. zouzou ‘take a stroll’, or a reduplicated adjective, e.g. gaogao-xingxing ‘delighted’, is described in grammars of SC as often pronounced in the neutral tone. A phonetic experiment on four speakers of Beijing Mandarin using Praat indicates a distinction between the second syllable of reduplicated verbs and reduplicated adjectives. The second syllable of the reduplicated verb has a pitch height determined by the tone of the preceding syllable. In contrast, the second syllable of the reduplicated adjective is pronounced in a relatively high tone regardless of the tonal category of the preceding syllable. Accordingly, this article claims that the former is indeed the neutral tone, which has features [+tone, -stress], while the latter is an unstressed syllable, which has features [-tone, -stress]. This prosodic difference is closely related to the semantic difference. A reduplicated verb indicates a casual or brief action (zou ‘to walk’; zouzou ‘take a stroll’) while a reduplicated adjective indicates intensity or vividness (gaoxing ‘happy’, gaogao-xingxing ‘delighted’). This demonstrates the interface in SC of phonetics and phonology on the one hand with morphology, pragmatics, and semantics on the other.