Intrinsic Fundamental Frequency of Vowels in Kaifeng Dialect

【Abstract】Intrinsic Fundamental Frequency （here after IF0） is a universal phonetic effect which discloses the correlation between height and fundamental frequency， whereby high vowels have higher F0 than low vowels. This paper cast light on eight monophthongs （a， ?， ?， ?， ?， u， y， i） in Kaifeng dialect. The result reflects quite clearly the significant difference in F0 between high and low vowels at higher tone. Therefore， the characteristics of IF0 do exist in Kaifeng dialect.

【Key words】IF0； maxF0； vowels； higher tones； Kaifeng dialect

1. Introduction

A correlation between vowel height and fundamental frequency is universal， the essential claim being that high vowels have higher intrinsic fundamental frequency （IF0） than low vowels. Accepting the presupposition that IF0 exists in tone languages， this paper intends to verify it by drawing on new evidence from eight vowels in Kaifeng dialect， which is [a， ?， ?， ?， ?， u， y， i]. If it does exist， this experiment will add evidence to the study of IF0 in tone language as well as help the establishment of Kaifeng dialect system.

2. Method

Test Material. In Kaifeng dialect， there is a total of 8 vowels [a， ?， ?， ?， ?， u， y， i] and the vowels occur in meaningful （C） V monosyllables.

Speakers and Recording. Digital audio recordings were made of 20 native speakers， 10 males and 10 females. Each monosyllabe was placed in a carrier sentence. The speakers were all born and grew up in Kaifeng and even their parents were native speakers too. More importantly， all speakers have no records of hearing difficulties.

Analysis. A total of 960 tokens were analyzed. Due to the fact that consonants before vowels were not designed to be the same one， it is unfeasible to calculate the average F0. Under this circumstance， maximum F0 would be better so that the interference of consonants could be completely excluded. All acoustic analysis of the data were conducted in Praat （Boersma&Weenink， 2015）. With the aid of a script （Xu， 2005， predecessor of ProsodyPro， Xu， 2005-2011）， vocal pulses were marked automatically by Praat and the MaxF0 for each speaker was adjusted. Additionally， the f0 measurements were hand-checked against narrow-band spectrogram in Praat.

3. Results and Discussion

As is discussed before， height and F0 are two crucial factors of the study. So based on pilot experiment， eight monophthongs are divided into three levels of height as demonstrated in Figure 1. This is a plot of the first two formants of the eight vowels， each circle represented with a small IPA symbol. Formant 1 is on the vertical axis with increasing values going downwards， and formant 2 on the horizontal axis with increasing values from right to left. In this two-dimensional plot， F1 largely represent vowel height and F2 characterizes backness. As can be seen， there is a difference in the positions of these vowel circles and because the IF0 has nothing to do with the quality of back or front， vowels are parted into three groups horizontally marked by the dotted lines paralleled with the horizontal axis. It is apparent that the vowel circles for [?， ?， u， y， i] are located more to the upper part and vowel circles for [?， ?] are located more to the middle part of this vowel chart， relative to the circle for [a].Thus， the differentials between [?， ?， u， y， i] and [a]are the key to the study.

Then， it is crucial to study F0 of each monophthongs and figure out their relations with the level of height. The data of extracted maxF0 of eight vowels are demonstrated in Table 2. Obviously， the F0 of female speaker is higher than male speaker， due to the greater pitch for the vowels sounds by the female speakers. Based on the scientific principles， One-way ANNOVA is conducted to prove the hypothesis.

In One-way ANNOVA， if P value is less than 0.05， the between-subjects effect is significant， the less， the better. If P value is more than 0.05， then there is no obvious connection between these two subjects. The results are illustrated in Table 3. Previously， it was assumed that the interaction between height and gender may have a combined effect on IF0. But the P value of this assumption is 0.760， much bigger than 0.05. Thus， it is no worth verifying it. While， luckily， the P value between height and F0 is 0.018， less than 0.05， which means these two subjects are closely related.

4. Conclusion

This paper verifies the existence of IF0 in Kaifeng dialect， taking eight monophthongs in high tones as the studying focus. On the basis of 20 native speakers recording material and the average of each vowels maxF0， the differential of F0 between high vowels and low vowel can be witnessed overtly in the figures. IF0， thus， does exist in Kaifeng dialect so that it adds evidence to the discussion whether IF0 exists in tone language. However， due to the time limit， this paper does not study another supposition pertaining to IF0 that IF0 is neutralized in low tones， which will become the future target of study.

References：

[1]Wai-Sum Lee and Eric Zee，“Standard Chinese（Beijing）”， Journal of the International Phonetic Association，33.109-112，2003.

[2]Zee E，Lee W S.An acoustical analysis of the vowels in beijing Mandarin[C]//INTERSPEECH.2001：643-646.

[3]Boersma，Paul & Weenink，David（2015）.Praat：doing phonetics by computer[Computer program].Version 6.0.08，retrieved 5 December 2015 from http：//www.praat.org/.

[4]Xu，Y.：ProsodyPro.Praat.Availablefrom：http：//www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/yi/ProsodyPro/（2005-2011）.

作者簡介：崔乾樂（1993-），女，漢族，江蘇泰州人，文學碩士，研究方向：外國語言學及應用語言學。