Regionally accented Mandarin lexical tones

Abstract

This study investigated tone variations in regionally accented Mandarin (i.e., Standard Mandarin [SM] spoken by native speakers of other regional dialects in China). Yantai, Shanghai, and Guangzhou dialects were selected because their tone systems are different in various ways from the Beijing dialect, which is the basis of the SM tone system. 16 female regional speakers (4 speakers × 4 dialectal regions) were recruited to produce SM monosyllabic words that allow minimal contrasts among the four Mandarin lexical tones (i.e., level, rising, dipping, and falling tones). The overall f0 contours within and across the four regional accents were modelled with growth curve analysis up to second-order orthogonal polynomials. The averaged tone shapes were significantly different within each of the regional accents, indicating that each group of regional Mandarin speakers successfully differentiated the four Mandarin lexical tones. However, the tone shape for each of the non-Beijing groups deviated significantly from Beijing Mandarin in two ways: (1) The quadratic term for the regional accents' dipping tones each differed significantly from Beijing accent; (2) The slopes of the regional accents' rising and falling tones each differed significantly from Beijing accent. These two differences facilitate better understanding of tone variations triggered by regional accents.