Acoustic Characteristics of Cantonese Full Tones and Entering Tones

Abstract

Introduction and aim Cantonese has a complex tonal system and even adult native-speakers may find some of the tone pairs difficult to perceive and produce. Few studies provided detailed acoustic information on Cantonese tones. Even less is known about the acoustic properties of the Cantonese entering tones. This study examined the acoustic characteristics of the six full tones and the three entering tones in Cantonese and compared the acoustic differences in easily confused tone pairs. Methods Seventeen native Cantonese-speaking adults produced 90 monosyllabic words covering the nine tones. Five-native speakers listened to the 3582 productions in low-pass filtered stimuli. Productions in which the tones were correctly identified by all five judges were selected for acoustic analyses. The durations, pitch levels and shapes of the pitch contours of each tone were measured. Results The findings provided detailed acoustic description of the nine tones and the more confusing tone pairs. Though the entering tones have the same pitch height as their full tone counterparts, different from the full tones, the entering tones have falling contours and are 2/3 to ¾ shorter than the full tones. Conclusion The detailed acoustic information provided in the study can be used as references to compare less distinctive Cantonese tone productions, and productions of atypical populations, such as children with hearing loss. The large differences in the tone shape and duration between the full tones and the entering tones suggest that future studies on Cantonese tone perception and production should separate the two tone categories.