Comparison of prosodic properties of intonation in beijing Mandarin and Taiwan Mandarin.

Abstract

In many studies, Beijing Mandarin and Taiwan Mandarin are considered to be identical because they share the same lexical tone system (except for a subtle difference in tone 3). However, native speakers of the two dialects can easily differentiate one from the other. This study investigates the intonation patterns of the two dialects; it will be shown that there are important prosodic differences in the boundary cues and use of pitch. The data were collected from recordings of “Little Red Riding Hood” read by eight native speakers (four from Beijing, and four from Taiwan). The preliminary results show that Beijing Mandarin and Taiwan Mandarin have different boundaries cues: at the phrase level, although both Beijing and Taiwan Mandarin have final lengthening, Taiwan Mandarin has no intensity reduction and Beijing Mandarin has a high boundary tone. At the sentence level, obvious lengthening and stress placement on final particles are observed in Taiwan Mandarin, while those particles are reduced in Beijing ...