MAODIAN 毛店 DISYLLABIC TONE SANDHI

This page contains examples of the disyllabic tone sandhi of a speaker from Maodian 毛店, a town in the middle of the Chinese province of Zhejiang. Maodian is at the southern tip of Yiwu 义乌county, about equidistant from the cities of Yiwu 义乌 and Yongkang 永康, in Yongkang county to the south.

The dialects in the Maodian area belong to the largely typologically-defined Wuzhou 婺州 subgroup of the Wu 吳 dialects, itself a first-order subgroup of Sinitic.  Wuzhou varieties are spoken in the central part of Zhejiang. Click here to view the location of Maodian in the Wuzhou subgroup. There is a characterisation of Wuzhou Wu, in Chinese, on pages 21 through 24 of Fu Guotong et al’s 1985 monograph Wu dialect subgroups of Zhejiang (傅国通, 方松熹, 蔡勇飞, 鲍士杰,傅佐之: 浙江吴语分区) published by the Zhejiang Linguistics Society. Information on Wuzhou may also be found in Cao Zhiyun’s 2002 book Studies on the phonetics of Southern Wu dialects (曹志耘: 南部吴语语音研究) published by the Commercial Press, Beijing.

To get the most from this page it is probably best to first orient yourself by listening to the data and having a look at their acoustics, here. If you have not yet done so, it might be better to first acquaint yourself with the Maodian speaker's isolation tones, here. After this initial orientation you might read sections on what is interesting about the data. There are several things to look and listen for. The sandhi exemplified appears to be basically of a type known as right-dominant, although it deviates from the prototype in not always preserving the final syllable tone. Read more about right-dominant sandhi here. Read about how the Maodian data deviate from the prototype here. The speaker has both long and short reflexes of the Middle Chinese Ru category in his disyllabic sandhi. Read about that here. Read about the recording here.

RIGHT-DOMINANT TONE SANDHI

Right-dominant, or right-focused is a typological term referring to a kind of tone sandhi common in the sandhi zone of the South-Eastern coastal provinces in China. In right-dominant tone sandhi, it is predominantly the tones on the morphemes on the rightmost syllables of a word or utterance which determine its sandhi shape. The tone on the word-final syllable is said to be preserved, and tonal contrasts on the preceding syllables tend to be neutralised, although not by the spreading typically found in Northern Wu left-dominant systems: the neutralisation groupings are often complicated, and their realisation likewise. These characteristics are things to check out in the Maodian data below.

The distinction between left- and right- dominant systems was, I think, first mentioned by Ballard in his 1984 Cahiers de Lingistique Asie Orientale paper: Wu, Min and a Little Hakka – Tone Sandhi: Right and Left. The typological distinction between left- and right-dominant systems is discussed in detail in Jie ZHANG's 2007 J. East Asian Linguistics paper: A directional asymmetry in Chinese tone sandhi systems. My detailed description of the right dominant tone sandhi in the Oujiang Wu dialect of Wencheng, which is less ambiguously right-dominant, can be found here.

RECORDING

The recording, made by Professor W.L. Ballard in August 1988 at Ehime University in Japan, was part of his survey of tones and tone sandhi in southern Wu varieties. His generosity in making the data available for analysis is gratefully acknowledged. The speaker is a male who was 27 years old when recorded. He was born in Maodian in 1961 and lived there until going to Hangzhou University at 17.

To elicit the data, Ballard chose disyllabic expressions to exemplify all combinations of the eight Middle Chinese tones (Yinping, yangping etc.). There were three different expressions for each tonal combination, each repeated three times after Ballard's numerical prompt. Click the following button to listen to Ballard's elicitation of the three items with the same underlying low level (Yangping Ib) tone on both syllables: 羊毛 wool, 银行 bank, 皮球 rubber ball :

.

Morphological structure. Most of the disyllabic expressions Ballard used are compound words with a morphological structure of either synonym e.g. 保持 preserve = {保 protect } + {持 hold}, or attribute-head e.g. 羊毛 wool = {羊 sheep } + {毛 hair}. There are also a few verb-object phrases, e.g.  做饭 cook  = {做 make} + {饭 rice}. ('Synonym' and 'attribute-head' are terms from the sections on morphological constructions in Kratochvil's 1968 book The Chinese Language Today).

DATA

In the table below I have set out all the disyllabic combinations elicited by Ballard. They are arranged by the etymological (Middle Chinese) tone of the first-syllable morpheme "T1" down the left-hand column, and by the etymological tone of the word-final morpheme "T2" along the top row. You can also click on the play/pause buttons in the top row to hear examples of the corresponding isolation tone. Ballard's elicitation text is given in the Simplified Chinese characters that he used, together with glosses. The few verb-object constructions in the corpus are marked with [VO] after their Chinese gloss.  Normally one would expect them to have different sandhi from the lexical items, but for this speaker this appears not to be the case. Items with anomalous tonal pitch – that is, items with pitch shapes that appear to deviate from the majority behaviour  – are shown in blue.

The extraction of the tonal acoustics was a shared job between Dr Shen Ruiqing and myself. I then  plotted the tonal acoustics - F0 as a function of absolute duration - of the first of the three replicates of each expression Ballard elicited. Thin dotted lines show the values of the individual expressions; thick lines show their mean value. Dashed lines show the F0 voiced intervocalic consonants (these comprise plain voiced obstruents, voiced implosives and, of course, sonorants and glides). You can expand the figures for closer examination - to see the F0 of the individual tokens for example - by clicking on them. Clicking again will shrink them. You can also listen to the expressions by clicking on the play/pause buttons (should work for Chrome; no guarantees for other browsers, sorry!).

click on individual figures to expand for inspection; click again to contract

(ETYMOLOGICAL) TONE on WORD-FINAL MORPHEME (T2) →

(ETYMOLOGICAL) TONE on 1st SYLLABLE MORPHEME (T1) ↓

T2= upper-mid level

(Ia/Yinping/陰平)

T2= lower-mid level

(Ib/Yangping/陽平)

T2= delayed mid rise

(IIa/Yinshang/陰上)

T2= delayed low rise

(IIb/Yangshang/陽上)

T2= high fall

(IIIa/Yinqu/陰去)

T2= depressed high fall

(IIIb/Yangqu/陽去)

T2= delayed lower-mid rise ~ short stopped mid

(IVa/Yinru/陰入)

T2= delayed low rise ~ short stopped low rise

(IVb/Yangru/陽入)

T1 =

upper-mid level

(Ia/Yinping

陰平)

飞机 airplane

松香 rosin

西瓜 cucumber

高楼 highrise building

昆明 Kunming

天桥 flyover

高考 college entrance exam

辛苦 tough

甘草 liquorice

brothers

轻重 weight

端午 Dragon Boat (festival)

功课 lessons

花布 printed cloth

仓库 granary

公事 public matters

方便 convenient

山洞 cave

China

方法 method

公式 formula

蜂蜜 honey

中学 middle school

生活 work

T1=

lower-mid level

(Ib/Yangping

陽平)

田鸡 frog

长衫 gown

红花 medicinal flower

 

>

羊毛 wool

银行 bank

皮球 rubber ball

门口 doorway

洪水 flood

长短 length

杨柳willow

红马red horse

朋友friend

长凳 bench

文化 culture

脾气 mood

同事 workmate

蚕豆broad bean

长寿 long life

牛骨 oxbone

毛笔 writing brush

头发 hair

同学fellow student

牛肉beef

红叶auctumnal leaves

T1=

delayed mid rise

(IIa/Yinshang

陰上)

点心 dimsum

普通 ordinary

手心 palm

 

保持 preserve

粉红 pink

果园 orchard

口齿 enuncitation

小巧 exquisite

保险 insure

小米millet

改造 reconstruct

处理 manage

考试[vo] take an exam

板凳 stool

打算 intend

宝贝 precious

草帽straw hat

子弹 bullet

扁豆hyacinth bean

宝塔pagoda

本国 one's own

country

首饰 jewelry

普及 universal

坦白 frank

T1=

delayed low rise

(IIb/Yangshang

陽上)

被窝 quilt

尾巴 tail

坐车[vo] ride

后门 back door

象棋 chess

肚皮 stomach

米粉 ground rice

老酒 booze

动手[vo] start work

远近 distance

道理 principle

马桶 toilet

眼镜 glasses

老货[?sic: usually can only qualify animates] old goods

雨布 waterproof cloth

后代posterity

社会society

部队 troops

负责 be responsible for

道德 moral

美国 America

李白 Li Bai (poet)

断绝 be cut off

眼药 eyedrops

动物 animal

T1=

high fall

(IIIa/Yinqu

陰去)

快车 express train

四方 on all sides

背心 waistcoat

借条 receipt

太平 peace

桂圆 longan

对比 contrast

报纸 newspaper

跳板 springboard

靠近 near to

对象 sweetheart 报社 newspaper office

靠背back of a chair

快信 express letter

放假[vo] take a holiday

笑话joke

半路 in mid journey

做饭[vo]make food

 

配角supporting actor

[vo]patriotic

建筑 building

快活happy

秘密 secret

势力 influence

T1=

depressed high fall

(IIIb/Yangqu

陽去)

面汤 noodle soup

地方 place

树根 root

地球 earth

外行 layman

坏人 bad person

外省 other provinces

院长 president

字典dictionary

代理act as agent for

号码 number

饭后 after-dinner

病假 sick leave

电报telegram

旧货 junk

命令 order

另外
additional

寿命 lifespan

画册 picture album

大雪blizard

字帖 copybook

饭盒 lunchbox

大学 university

练习 practice

T1=

delayed lower-mid rise ~ short-stopped mid

(IVa/Yinru

陰入)

浙江 Zhejiang province

骨科 orthopedics

北风 north wind

足球 football

国旗 national flag

发条 spring

脚底 sole

百果 all kinds of fruit

出口 export

国语 national language

竹篓 bamboo basket

黑市black market

百货 general merchanise

黑布 black cloth

客气 polite

[vo]revolution

一定 definitely

发病 outbreak of illness

赤脚 barefoot

铁塔 pylon

发作 lose temper

骨肉 flesh & blood

吃力 tired

复杂 complicated

T1=

delayed low rise ~ short stopped low rise

(IVb/Yangru

陽入)

月光 moon

滑车 pulley

学生 student

毒蛇 poisonous snake

别人 others

石头 stone

袜底 stocking sole

肉体 flesh

白果 ginko

白米 polished rice

物理 physics

活动 activity

热气 hot air

学费 tuition fees

白布 calico

服务 serve

木料timber

十位ten people

蜡烛 candle

合作 cooperate

白铁 tin

学习 study

白药 medicinal powder

植物 plant

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THINGS TO LOOK AND LISTEN FOR

Familiar morpheme.  Although not it was not in Ballard’s written prompts it is interesting to note that the speaker appears to have said four words with an additional {familiar} morpheme suffix (corresponding to the er 儿 in Modern Standard Chinese). The four words were the nouns 尾巴tail  (IIb+Ia),  地方 place (IIIb+Ia)竹篓 bamboo basket (IVa+IIb)and 饭盒lunchbox (IIIb+IVb), and possibly also 面汤 noodle soup (IIIb+Ia).  Click to listen. You can hear that the words end in an alveolar nasal, which is a common allomorph for this morpheme in many Wu dialects.  The morpheme does not appear to carry a tone in these examples: its allomorph is simply suffixed as a coda of the word-final syllable.  There are two other examples in the data involving the morpheme 药 {medicine}  -  眼药 eyedrops (IIb+IVb)  and  白药  medicinal powder (IVb+IVb) - which from the overlong duration of its word-final syllable I suspect has the {familiar} morpheme realised as a prolongation of the vowel: . You can read more about the Southern Wu {familiar} morpheme in chapter 5 of Cao Zhiyun’s 2002 book Studies on the phonetics of Southern Wu dialects (曹志耘: 南部吴语语音研究) published by the Commercial Press, Beijing.

Short Ru tones in disyllabic sandhi In the page on Maodian citation tones it was pointed out that the speaker has a few short stopped reflexes of the Middle Chinese Ru tone category.  Short  Ru tones also appear in the disyllabic examples on both first syllable (where they are just short) and word-final syllable (where they also end in a glottal-stop).  Combinations with short first-syllable tones are plotted in green, and their characters are also shown in green.  For example, for words with the IVa + Ia combination (row 7, column 1) the speaker said two – Zhejiang (province) 浙江 and orthopaedics 骨科 – with a short tone on the first syllable, and one – north wind 北风 – with a long tone: .

Combinations with short stopped second-syllable tones are plotted and marked in cyan. One example can be heard in the word universal 普及 in the IIa + IVb combination in row 3 column 8.  Note he said the other word with this etymological combination – frank  坦白  –  with a long final tone:

Apart from these occasional short tones, although there are (8 first-syllable etymological tones * 8 word-final etymological tones = ) 64 etymological combinations in the table, it is clear even from a cursory listening that not all combinations are different. One reduction in the number of different shapes results from the fact that combinations with second syllable etymological tones IIb and IVb are the same (apart from those IVb reflexes which are said short). This is not surprising, since the speaker does not distinguish these two reflexes in his citation tones, showing a merger of IVb with his delayed low rising reflex of IIb.  Whether the IVa and IIa reflexes show a parallel merger in the second syllable of disyllabic combinations remains to be seen – the speaker kept the corresponding citation tones separate, but very similar. The nice pair 字典 dictionary (IIIb + IIa) and 字帖 copybook (IIIb + IVa) suggests that a word-final contrast between delayed mid-rising (IIa) and delayed lower-mid rising (IVa) persists: . Note that the second-syllable Onset /n/ in the first example regularly derives from Proto Wu *t before a *nasal coda. The /n/ onset in the second syllable is irregular, however, as cognates have a voiceless aspirated Onset and only voiceless unaspirated *t and *p nasalised; and also there was no nasal coda to trigger nasalistion of the Onset in the first place.

One thing which is clear from the table is that, for many combinations, the realisations of the first syllable are fairly simple and belong to just two basic targets: level and falling. The realisation of these shapes is determined by two factors: coarticulation with the following syllable (which is both assimilatory and dissimilatory), and whether the underlying tone is upper or lower register. Upper register level shapes are realised as mid or high level, and lower register shapes are realised by a variety of low rising contours. Upper register falling shapes are realised as falling, usually from a value in the middle of the pitch range, lower register shapes are realised with a slighlty lower fall. A very nice minimal pair differing in upper and lower register fall on the first syllable is 百果 all kinds of fruits and 白果 ginko. Listen to it here: . Note how the register difference is also signalled by the different onset consonants - imploded [ɓ] vs plain voice onset lead [b]. Register is discussed in the Maodian citation tones page.

Sandhi Typology The Maodian data are interesting from the point of view of tone sandhi typology as they appear to exemplify both RIGHT- and LEFT-DOMINANT properties (and also some properties that are difficult to interpret in these terms). Here are a couple of right-dominant characteristics to listen for and check out in the acoustics.

  • To what extent is the "word-final tone preserved"?
  • Compare the isolation tone (buttons in top row of table) with the corresponding word-final realisations DOWN THE COLUMNS. Try the delayed low rising tone first (in columns 4 and 8). You can hear that its word-final realisations have a similar pitch contour to the delayed low rising citation tone, but that its height varies depending on the tone of preceding syllable. You can also see this in the F0 traces. So in these cases the pitch of the word-final tone is similar to that of the isolation tone, once assimilatory influence from the preceding tone is allowed for. The delayed mid rising tone IIa is also preserved in this way on the word-final syllable (column 3).

    One case where word-final preservation does not happen is when the underlying second syllable tone is lower-mid level Ib (column 2). Most of the word-final realisations of this underlying tone are clearly falling and some actually high falling.  This also applies to some combinations with an underlying word-final  upper-mid level tone Ia(column 1), although there are clear instances of word-final preservation of  this tone (in combinations IIa + Ia, IIb + Ia, IIIa + Ia and IIIb + Ia for example).

    A far more interesting case of non-preservation occurs in combinations where the overall pitch of the word is convex, for example combination IIIb + IIIb (row 6 column 6) or combination IVb + IIIa (row 8 column 5). The pitch shape of the word in these combinations is reminiscent of the kind of left-to-right spread of first syllable tone that occurs in left-dominant systems. Since the underlying tone of the first syllable in some of these combinations is indeed  convex (the depressed high falling tone IIIb) a possible explanation of these disyllabic convex pitches is standard deletion of the second syllable tone followed by spread of the first syllable tone. Extension of the pattern to other combinations, like IVb + IIIa, which do not have the underlying IIIb tone would also have to be assumed. This behavour looks to be paralleled in combinations with an overall falling pitch, for example IIa + Ib, IIa + IIIa, IIa + IIIb, IVa + IIIa, although in these cases it is not possible to motivate a left-to-right spread from an underlying high falling tone on the first syllable!

  • What about tones on the word-initial syllable?
  • Complex neutralisation of first-syllable tones typically found in right-dominant sandhi may be seen in the first-syllable shapes before the delayed low rising tone in columns 4 and 8. It can be heard and seen that the upper-mid level (Ia) and high falling (IIIa) tones are realised as mid level; the delayed low rising (IIb/IVb) and depressed high falling (IIIb) tones are realised as lower register falling; and the delayed mid rising (IIa) and lower-mid rising (IVa) tones are realised as upper-register falling.

  • Combinations that are neither right- nor left-dominant
  • Combinations like Ia + Ia or Ia + Ib do not seem to fit either the right- or left dominant model. The mid-falling second-syllable tone is clearly not preserved, but neither is it plausibly spread from an underlying first-syllable Ia tone, which is upper-mid level.

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