The prosody of the compound words in Hong Kong Cantonese

Abstract

The bisyllabic, trisyllabic, and quadrisyllabic compounds in Hong Kong Cantonese were analyzed for their prosodic characteristics, including temporal structure, F0 contour, and intensity contour. Results show that the durations of the syllable-initial fricatives and the voice onset time of the aspirated stops and aspirated affricate of the component syllables vary according to the positions in the compounds in which the syllables occur. As for the unaspirated stops and affricate, they are not affected by the positions of the component syllables. The rime durations which also vary according to their positions in the compounds are longest for the final syllables to be followed by the preceding syllables in decreasing order. In the case of the quadrisyllables, the difference in rime duration between the initial and second component syllables is insignificant. On the basis of the findings, temporal models for the compounds are constructed. The F0 contours of the citation tones on the component syllables may be subject to the F0 declination effect. The shapes of the citation tones may change, but in most cases the citation forms are retained. With a few exceptions, the intensity curves for the rimes co-vary with the F0 contours.