華語焦點變調 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學語言學研究所碩士論文 National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of Linguistics Master Thesis. 立. 治政指導教授：蕭宇超大. Advisor: Yuchau E. Hsiao. ‧. ‧ 國. 學 er. io. sit. y. Nat. 華語焦點變調. n. a lMandarin Focal Tone Sandhi i v n Ch U engchi. 研究生：石書豪撰 Student: Shu-hao Shih 中華民國一百零一年六月 June, 2012.

(2) Mandarin Focal Tone Sandhi. By Shu-hao Shih. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. io. y. sit. Graduate Institute of Linguistics. er. Nat. A Thesis Submitted to the. n. a lin Partial Fulfillment of the i v nof C h for the Degree Requirements U engchi Master of Arts. June, 2012. ii.

(3) The members ofthe Committee approve the thesis of Shu-hao Shih defended on May 23th, 2012. ，，乙 Professi)r/Yuchau E. Hsiao Adviso. D ，﹄乙之、-，@」， Professor Chin-wei Wu Committee Member. 兀(M Professor Hui-shan Lin Committee Member. Approved:. 及翌 Kawai Chui, Director, Graduate Institute of Linguistics.

(4) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. Copyright © 2012 Shu-hao Shih All Rights Reserved iii. i n U. v.

(5) Acknowledgements 誌謝. 一晃眼，三年的時間就這樣過去了。好快。能夠讓我順利畢業，準時寫完一本論文，最要感謝的當然是指導教授蕭宇超老師。老師正面樂觀的求學問態度，對我影響很大。有時候我遇到挫折，老師總是不厭其煩的鼓勵我，讓我有勇氣能夠繼續下去。除此之外，老師也鼓勵學生踴躍投稿。也因為如此，在我念研究所期間，有機會去瑞典和日本參加研討會，增長見聞。在寫論文這段期間，雖然碰到老師休假半年，老師還是時常叮嚀我要趕快寫，使我的進度不會過於落後。當然，千言萬語也說不完對老師感謝的話，希望以後有空能找老師吃個大餐，並大笑幾聲。我也特別感謝那些教導過我的老師們。何萬順老師的邏輯辯證功力，讓我非常敬佩，而幽默風趣的教學方式也在課堂上增添了許多趣味。萬依萍老師的語音學和實驗音韻學除了讓我一探聲音的奧妙之外，也了解實驗和理論之間的關聯。黃瓊之老師的研究方法，建立了我寫文章的一切根本。徐嘉慧老師的語意課使我體驗到何為抽象世界。莫建清老師的構詞學，從早期到現代，深入淺出，讓我對理論的演變有更深一層的認識。也特別感謝民族系的 Iwan Nawi 老師，讓我有一窺賽德克族語言和文化的機會。最後，謝謝所辦曾惠鈴助教，沒有妳的幫忙和叮嚀，很多行政和選課上的事情我都無法完成。再來我要感謝我的家人。謝謝父親石順裕先生讓我在經濟上無後顧之憂，不用為了擔心生活費不夠，而花多餘的時間打工。謝謝母親黃純珍女士平時的關心，讓我在壓力之下能有宣洩的空間。希望爸爸和媽媽都能好好享受和規劃退休的生活，不用再為我操心。謝謝兄長石耘臺先生，不論是在新竹、當兵、或是在台北教書這些期間，不僅非常照顧我，也時常請吃好料，滿足了我的口腹之慾。最後，感謝那些陪我度過研究所苦悶生活的同學以及朋友們。感謝曉貞、媛媜、姿幸、柏溫、琬婷、心綸、侃彧、美杏、晉瑋以及宛君。研究所除了課業之外，最重要的是我們曾經是同學，這緣份得來不易，希望大家畢業後都能一帆風順。感謝學弟妹們的陪伴，培禹、景芃、煒翰、婉君、韻如、佑丞、平周以及涵絜。有你們常常打屁聊天，讓我跟你們之間好像沒有年齡上的差別，是吧？至於其他以前就認識的好朋友們，雖然在這邊不多作感謝，但我還是很謝謝你們的支持。. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 一頁台北終將結束。但是，每一天都是一個嶄新的日子，我這麼期許著。. iv.

(6) Table of Contents. Acknowledgements .................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ...................................................................................................... v Chinese Abstract...................................................................................................... vii English Abstract ..................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 1 1. Introduction ................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................... 4 2.1 Tonotactics of Mandarin ............................................................................... 4 2.2 Syntax-Phonology Interface ......................................................................... 5 2.3 Previous Studies........................................................................................... 7 2.3.1 Zhang’s (1988) and Shih’s (1990) Analyses ....................................... 7 2.3.2 Hsiao (1991, 1995) ........................................................................... 11 2.3.3 Cho (1990) & Kanerva (1990) ..........................................................15 2.4 Theoretical Background ..............................................................................18 2.4.1 Optimality Theory ............................................................................18 2.4.2 Correspondence Theory ....................................................................20 2.4.3 Prosodic Correspondence in Tone Sandhi .........................................22 2.4.4 Generalized Alignment .....................................................................24 2.4.5 Cophonology Theory ........................................................................25 CHAPTER 3 DATA ANALYSIS ..............................................................................27 3.1 Data Collection ...........................................................................................27 3.2 Type A: Adverbs and Auxiliary Verbs in a Simple Sentence ........................30 3.3 Type B: the Flat Structure ...........................................................................33 3.4 Type C: Other Types of Sentences ...............................................................37 3.4.1 Unmarked Focal Tone Sandhi Patterns .............................................37 3.4.2 Marked Focal Tone Sandhi Patterns ..................................................41 3.5 Focal Boundary vs. Lexical Items ...............................................................45 3.6 Generalization of Focal Tone Sandi in Mandarin .........................................48 3.7 The Size of the Mandarin Focal Phrase .......................................................50 CHAPTER 4 OT ANALYSIS ...................................................................................55 4.1 Prosodic Constraints for Mandarin Regular Tone Sandhi .............................55. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. v. i n U. v.

(7) 4.2 Prosodic Constraints for Mandarin Focal Tone Sandhi ................................60 4.2.1 ALIGN-L(F, FP) & ALIGN-L(FP, Ft) ...................................................61 4.2.2 ALIGN-R(F, FP) & ALIGN-R(FP, Ft) ...................................................65 4.2.3 ALIGN-E(FP, IP) ................................................................................70 4.2.4 [FTMIN & NON-FINALITY] ...................................................................71 4.2.5 Focal Variations ................................................................................75 4.3 A Comparison of Prosodic Constraints for Non-focal and Focal Readings ...76 4.4 Summary of Prosodic Constraints ...............................................................78 4.5 Tonal Constraints for Mandarin Regular Tone Sandhi..................................79 4.6 Tonal Constraints for Mandarin Focal Tone Sandhi .....................................87 4.6.1 OCP-L(ft) .........................................................................................87 4.7 A Comparison of Tonal Constraints for Non-focal and Focal Readings ........89 4.8 Summary of Tonal Constraints ....................................................................92 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION...................................................................................94 5.1 Summary of the Thesis ................................................................................94 5.2 Further Issues ..............................................................................................98 REFERENCES....................................................................................................... 100 VITA ...................................................................................................................... 108. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. vi. i n U. v.

(8) 國立政治大學語言學研究所碩士論文提要研究所別：語言學研究所論文名稱：華語焦點變調指導教授：蕭宇超. 博士. 研究生：石書豪論文提要內容：(共一冊，一萬八千一百八十四個字，分五章). 政治大. 本文旨在探討華語焦點變調，並以青年語者為主。本文分別檢驗三種不同的. 立. 句型，第一類為焦點助動詞和焦點副詞，第二類為平坦結構，第三類則是其它類. ‧ 國. 學. 型的句子。在優選理論的架構下，本文分別提出韻律制約和聲調制約來詮釋華語. ‧. 的焦點變調。筆者透過並存音韻理論(Cophonology Theory)來說明焦點韻律結構. Nat. io. sit. y. 的劃分是多個次語法的運作結果。焦點韻律結構的劃分有兩種，主要由(ALIGN-L(F,. er. FP), ALIGN-L(FP, Ft))和(ALIGN-R(F, FP), ALIGN-R(FP, Ft))這兩組可移動的對整制約. al. n. v i n Ch 來決定，當它們在制約排序中移動到不同的位置時會形成不同的韻律結構劃分。 engchi U 本研究發現焦點詞組等同於語調詞組，因此提出另一個對整制約 ALIGN-E(FP, IP). 來解釋。排序最高的韻律制約則是[FTMIN & NON-FINALITY]，目的在於避免單音節音步出現在句末。至於聲調制約，筆者採用 IDENT-BOT 來處理三音節音步的變調結果。此外，焦點韻律結構的劃分會造成兩個相鄰的上聲出現在不同的音步之中， OCP-L(ft)可以確保此形式的保留。簡言之，本文藉由優選理論的觀點，以及韻律制約和聲調制約的互動，對華語焦點變調提出了一個整體分析。. vii.

(9) Abstract. This thesis examines Mandarin focal tone sandhi among Taiwan youngsters. Three types of sentences are under investigation: Type A includes the focused auxiliary verbs and adverbs in a simple sentence, Type B the flat structure, and Type C the other types of structures. Under the framework of Optimality Theory, this thesis proposes prosodic constraints and tonal constraints to account for Mandarin focal tone. 治政 sandhi. This thesis adopts Cophonology Theory to explain 大 the subgrammars of focal 立 ‧ 國. 學. phrasings. There are two types of focal phrasing patterns governed by the reranking of two sets of alignment constraints (ALIGN-L(F, FP), ALIGN-L(FP, Ft)) and (ALIGN-R(F,. ‧. FP), ALIGN-R(FP, Ft)). The focal phrase pertains to a special kind of intonational. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. phrase. This thesis proposes ALIGN-E(FP, IP) to explain this condition. The. i n U. v. undominated constraint, [FTMIN & NON-FINALITY], is proposed to ban a monosyllabic. Ch. engchi. foot in sentence-final positions. IDENT-BOT is adopted to deal with the tri-tonal strings such as (σ(σσ)) and ((σσ)σ) in non-focal and focal readings. In addition, focal phrasing may force adjacent L tones to appear in different feet. OCP-L(ft) is proposed to explain this situation. To conclude, based on the constraint-based theory, and the interaction of prosodic constraints and tonal constraints, this thesis has provided a theoretical generalization of Mandarin focal tone sandhi.. viii.

(10) CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION. 1. Introduction This study investigates the Mandarin focal tone sandhi under the theoretical framework of Optimality Theory (OT). Mandarin third tone sandhi has intrigued. 政治大. many scholars in the previous literature (Cheng, 1973; Shih, 1986; Zhang 1988; Hung. 立. 1989, among others). Third tone sandhi is a process in Mandarin Chinese that changes. ‧ 國. 學. a third tone into a second tone when the third tone is immediately followed by another. ‧. third tone. However, the interaction between focus and third tone sandhi has not. Nat. io. sit. y. attracted much attention. Shih (1990) and Hsiao (1991, 1995) propose that in. er. Mandarin, the focal boundary is placed at the left edge of the focal element and that. al. n. v i n the foot formation ends at this C boundary. these studies lack a thorough h e n Nevertheless, gchi U investigation of the focal tone sandhi in different parts of speech and syntactic structures. The term focus in this study is used to indicate the phonological and semantic contrast occurring in syntactic elements. In other words, focus indicates interconnections between syntax, phonology, and semantics. Specifically, a focus is contrastive when it explicitly contradicts a set of stated or predicted alternatives.. 1.

(11) 2. When a syntactic element is under focus, the tone sandhi domain and the tone sandhi pattern are different from the regular reading. In other words, the prosodic domain is restructured so that the tone sandhi pattern is changed. Prosodic restructuring due to focus is common among languages and often displays an interface between syntax, phonology, and semantics (Condoravdi, 1990, Kanerva, 1990, Nagahara, 1994). This thesis examines Mandarin focal tone sandhi based on following questions.. 政治大. First, since the original studies of Mandarin focal tone sandhi were done roughly two. 立. decades ago, there is a question as to whether the findings from studies of the. ‧ 國. 學. intuitions of youngsters who were born in the 1990s are the same or different from the. ‧. claims of the operation of Mandarin focal tone sandhi in the previous literature?. Nat. io. sit. y. Second, what is the focal phrasing pattern in terms of different syntactic structures. al. er. and parts of speech? Third, how is the focused element aligned in relation to focal. n. v i n Cfocused phrase? More specifically, is the located at the right or left edge of h e n element gchi U. focal phrase when the focus is in different syntactic structures or on different parts of speech? Fourth, what is the tone sandhi pattern of the focused element? Does the focused element undergo tone sandhi or retain the citation tone? Fifth, under the framework of OT, what are the prosodic constraints, tonal constraints, and the rankings that determine the output form of Mandarin focal tone sandhi? The organization of this thesis is as follows. Chapter 1 introduces the general.

(12) 3. background of Mandarin tone sandhi and the definition of focus. Chapter 2 reviews some previous rule-based studies, and some related theoretical background. Chapter 3 surveys the data from Taiwan youngsters and proposes certain generalizations about Mandarin focal tone sandhi. Chapter 4 adopts Optimality Theory and posits prosodic constraints and tonal constraints to account for Mandarin focal tone sandhi. Chapter 5 is the summary of this thesis.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(13) CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW. This chapter will review some related theoretical frameworks dealing with the syntax-phonology interface and some recent studies in relation to Mandarin focal tone sandhi. I will also discuss the basic concepts of Optimality Theory, Correspondence. 政治大. Theory, Generalized Alignment, and Cophonology Theory.. 學. ‧ 國. 立 2.1 Tonotactics of Mandarin. ‧. Mandarin is a tone language. Different tones will change the meaning of the. Nat. io. sit. y. words. There are four tones in the Mandarin tonal system: high level (H), rising (LH),. er. low (L), and falling (HL). In particular, the low tone (L) is treated as the phonological. al. n. v i n C h Lin 2000). The U representation of MLH (Hsiao 1991; e n g c h i Mandarin third tone sandhi rule and the application of the rule are illustrated below:. (1) Mandarin Tone Sandhi Rule: L → LH / __ L lao. ban. ‘bosses’. L. L. base tone. LH. L. surface tone sandhi pattern. 4.

(14) 5. This example shows that the first syllable lao, which carries a L tone, changes to a LH tone, when it is followed by another L tone. The last syllable ban does not undergo tone sandhi and retains its base tone in surface.. 2.2 Syntax-Phonology Interface In the literature, there are two main approaches to the mapping between syntax. 政治大. and phonology: the Direct Reference Hypothesis and the Indirect Reference. 立. Hypothesis. The Direct Reference Hypothesis claims that phonological rules are. ‧ 國. 學. sensitive to syntactic structures, and that phonological rule domains are determined by. ‧. Nat. io. sit. intermediate level between syntax and phonology.. y. syntactic surface structures (Kaisse, 1985; Odden 1987, among others). There is no. al. er. However, the Indirect Reference Hypothesis argues that phonological rules do. n. v i n not operate directly on syntacticCstructures. they operate on the intermediate h e n gInstead, chi U level between syntax and phonology, namely, prosodic structures (Selkirk, 1984; Nespor and Vogel, 1986; Shih, 1986; Hung, 1987; Hsiao, 1991, 1995, among others). Prosodic structures are constructed based on syntactic information and serve as the domains for phonological rules, as illustrated in (2)..

(15) 6. (2) Indirect Reference Hypothesis. 政治大. There is a separate prosodic hierarchy, parallelling syntactic structure. Its main. 立. components include utterance, intonational phrase, phonological phrase, clitic group,. ‧ 國. 學. phonological word, foot, syllable, and mora, as in (3).. ‧. Nat. sit. n. al. er. io. U (utterance). y. (3) Prosodic Hierarchy. I (intonational phrase). φ (phonological phrase) C (clitic group) ω (phonological word) F (foot) σ (syllable) µ (mora). Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(16) 7. The hierarchy is governed by the Strict Layer Hypothesis. The Strict Layer Hypothesis determines the geometry of this constituent structure, as follows:. (4) Strict Layer Hypothesis (Selkirk 1984; Nespor & Vogel 1986) a. A given non-terminal unit is composed of one or more units of the immediately lower category.. 政治大. b. A unit of a given level is exhaustively contained in the superordinate unit of. 立. which it is a part.. Nat. io. sit. 2.3.1 Zhang’s (1988) and Shih’s (1990) Analyses. y. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. 2.3 Previous Studies. al. er. Shih (1986) convincingly demonstrated that foot is not formed by surface. n. v i n C h prosodic structure syntactic structure, but it is a mediating e n g c h i U partially conditioned by syntactic structure. Shih (1986) modified Chen’s (1984) rules, which were originally designed for scanning Chinese poetry and verse:. (5) Foot Formation Rules a. Immediate Constituency (IC): Link immediate constituents into disyllabic feet. b. Duple Meter (DM): Scanning from left to right, string together unpaired.

(17) 8. syllables into binary feet, unless they branch in the opposite direction. c. Superfoot (f’): Join any leftover monosyllable to a neighboring binary foot according to the direction of the syntactic branching.. Zhang (1988), based on Shih’s Foot Formation Rules, posits that foot formation starts with this accented syllable so that restructured foot domains would derive tone. 政治大. patterns different from the non-focal renditions. Example (6) is given for illustration.. 學. ‧ 國. 立 (6) ‘I want to buy small cats’. buy small. hua. mao cat. y. flower. sit. wish. xiao. IC. io. n. al. L. L. L. L. L. LH. L. L. DM. er. I. mai. ‧. xiang. Nat. wo. i n Ch Superfoot engchi U. v. H. H. base tone pattern. H. H. sandhi tone pattern. In (6), the DM starts scanning from the accented syllable xiang rightward, in order to string xiang and mai, instead of wo and xiang, into a foot. Then, wo joins the existing foot to form a trisyllabic foot to which tone sandhi is applied, and hence the low tone of wo remains invariant, unlike the non-focal reading is (LH.(LH.L))(L.(H.H))..

(18) 9. Shih (1990), on the other hand, posits an ‘emphatic boundary’ before the focal element, suggesting that foot formation ends at the boundary ($ = emphatic boundary).. (7) a. ‘Old Li only attempts to buy a novel.’ Lao Li $ zhi old Li. xiang. mai. only attempt. buy. ‧ 國. DM Superfoot. 學. L. L. L. L. H. base tone pattern. LH. L. LH. L. H sandhi tone pattern. ‧. LH L. novel. 政治IC 大. 立 L L. xiao shuo. io. sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. b. ‘Old Li only attempts to buy a novel.’ Lao Li zhi $ xiang. Ch. i n U. mai xiao shuo. engchi. v. old Li only attempt buy novel. IC DM Superfoot L L L LH LH L. L. L. L. H. base tone pattern. LH. L. L. H. sandhi tone pattern. In (7a), zhi is the focal element, and thus the preceding syllables lao and li form a foot..

(19) 10. In addition, xiang in (7b) is the focal element, and an emphatic boundary is placed before it. As a result, zhi must join lao li to form a foot, and retains its base tone. However, the parameters proposed by Zhang (1988) and Shih (1990) fail to make a correct prediction of focal phrasing in flat structures. Consider the example of the flat structure in (8) where the focus is on the central syllable.. ‘55955’. 政治大. (LH. L). L. L. L. base tone. L). *tone sandhi pattern. L). correct pattern. ((LH LH). Nat. ((LH LH). wu. L). (LH. io. al. y. L. wu. ‧. L. $jui. sit. wu. 學. wu. ‧ 國. 立. er. (8). n. v i n C hdecide that the footUformation starts at the focused As in (8), Zhang and Shih would engchi element jui. As a consequence, the focused element jui inevitable carries a sandhi tone instead of a base tone, but the output is ill-formed. In fact, in a flat structure, the focused element stands at the right edge of the focal phrase, and thereby the foot formation ends at the focused element. To account for this problem, I will propose a right-edge constraint in chapter 4 to explain the phrasing of the focal tone sandhi in a flat structure..

(20) 11. 2.3.2 Hsiao (1991, 1995) In order to capture the psychological reality of the native intuition, Hsiao (1991, 1995) proposes a beat-counting device, showing that the structure of the foot should be built upon metrical beats, which mediate between the foot and the syllable. Lexical syllables and functor syllables are distinguished in his beat-counting theory:. 政治大. 立. (9) Beat Assignment. ‧ 國. 學. a. Lexical Beat-Assignment (LB): Every lexical syllable is assigned a metrical. ‧. beat.. Nat. io. sit. y. b. Functor Beat-Assignment (FB): A functor syllable is assigned a beat in normal. n. al. er. or slow speech, behaving like a lexical syllable, and is left-adjoined to the. Ch. nearest beat in fast speech.. engchi. i n U. v. c. FB takes place after lexical syllables have been made into ICFs or ABFs.. (10) Foot Formation Revisited a. Immediate Constituent Foot (ICF): Any adjacent beats which are assigned to ICs form an ICF. b. Adjacent Beat Foot (ABF): Any two adjacent beats which are not assigned to.

(21) 12. ICs are paired into an ABF. c. Jumbo Foot (JF): Any unpaired single beat is recruited by a neighboring foot to from a Jumbo Foot if the beat c-commands the adjacent beat contained in the foot. d. Minifoot (MF): The leftmost single beat constitutes a Minifoot iff it is followed by an intonational phrase boundary %.. (11) Application Criteria. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. a. When all conditions are met, the ICF prevails over other footing processes.. ‧. b. Scanning starts from left to right and stops as soon as the environmental. Nat. applies to the whole line.. al. er. io. sit. y. requirements for either MF, ABF or JF are met, and the principle triggered. n. v i n Cintonational c. Footing must not cross any U h e n g cphrase h i boundary.. To account for tone sandhi in relation to focus, Hsiao proposes the principle of focal phrasing:. (12) Focal Phrasing (FB): A focal boundary $ is placed before a focused lexical syllable iff it is outside of an ICF or a JF..

(22) 13. The general assumption is that foot construction cannot operate across the focal boundary $, which, however, can not be placed within an ICF or a JF. That is, a functor syllable does not have the ability to take the focal boundary $. ABF does not resist a focal boundary as ICF and JF do. This is because ABF usually renders a metrical tension, and hence is more breakable. The following example shows the. 政治大. application of focal phrasing.. 學. ‘A small horse is walking.’. x. x. lu Lexical Beat. n. al. x. sit. zou. y. ‧. $ma. io. x. Nat. xiao. ICF. Ch. engchi. *MF. er. (13). ‧ 國. 立. i n U. v. *JF L. L. L. HL base tone pattern. L. LH. L. HL *sandhi tone pattern. When ma in (13) is focused, $ is placed before it, forcing xiao to emerge as a Minifoot. The focal ma then joins the ICF to form a Jumbo Foot. As a consequence, ma inevitably carries a LH tone, and the derived reading is ill-formed. The placement.

(23) 14. of a focal boundary $ is prevented after the first ICF, as dictated by the Focal Phrasing Principle. Nevertheless, when focal phrasing occurs in the marked reading of Type C 1, Hsiao’s focal phrasing is unable to make a correct prediction, as illustrated in (14).. ‘Dogs bite Small Bao.’. 政治大. 立 x. x. Lexical Beat. ‧. ICF. L. L. Nat. ABF. LH. L. LH. a lL. L. L. LH. L. io. L. L. y. x. bao. sit. x. xiao. ‧ 國. yao. 學. $guo. base tone. n. i n U. *tone sandhi pattern. C hcorrect pattern engchi. er. (14). v. The focal boundary is required to be placed before the focused element guo since it is a lexical syllable. As a result, guo undergoes tone sandhi and changes to a LH tone. Yet, this is not the correct pattern because in a marked reading, the focused element usually retains the base tone. Therefore, this study will propose a right-edge parameter 1. As Chapter 3 will show, there are two alternative focal phrasing patterns among youngsters when focal phrasing occurs in Type C. One is common and unmarked while the other is less frequent and marked..

(24) 15. to account for the focal phraing patterns in Mandarin. The foot formation should be stopped before the boundary. The boundary itself does not reveal any phonetic cues, such as the change of pitch or duration. By using the term focal phrase, there is no need to further point out the phonetic properties once the phrase is under focus.. 政治大. 2.3.3 Cho (1990) & Kanerva (1990). 立. Cho (1990) examines the relationship of syntax and phrasing in Korean. She. ‧ 國. 學. discovered that the semantic notion of focus, together with its phonological realization. ‧. as high pitch, plays a crucial role in phrasing. The focus phrasing data in the study. Nat. io. sit. y. show that the determination of prosodic structure is not entirely dependent on. n. al. er. syntactic notions. Consider how the presence of focus affects phrasing in (15).. (15). a. nuka. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. ‘who(Nom)’ [+high]. [núga gayo] ‘Who is going?’ who goes b. [Súni-ga gayo] ‘Suni is going.’ (in answer to (a)) c. [Suni-ga] [kayo] ‘Suni is going.’ (normal declarative sentence) Suni-Nom goes.

(25) 16. As shown in (15b), the accented subject is phrased with the non-branching verb phrase. It is necessary to include one more clause in phonological phrasing of Korean. That is, phrase any focused word with the next word, unless that word is already phrased. Kanerva (1990) investigated the focus in relation to phonological phrasing in Chichewa, a Bantu language spoken in East Central Africa. The major finding in his. 政治大. study is that Chichewa phonological phrases are strongly dependent on focus, and are. 立. generally larger and more variable with respect to syntax than what is reported for. ‧ 國. 學. phonological phrases in other languages. In light of this, the Chichewa domains could. ‧. represent a truly distinct pattern of prosodic organization since no phonological phrase. Nat. below. Focus is indicated by bold typeface.. n. al. (16) a. (VP). Ch. engchi. er. io. sit. y. algorithms hold up under scrutiny of focus. Four focal phrasings of VP are given. i n U. v. A-namenya nyumba ndi mwala. ‘pro-hit the house with a rock’. b. (VP). (Anaményá nyumbá ndí mwáála). c. (V OBJ OBL). (Anaményá nyumbá ndí mwáála). d. (V OBJ) (OBL) (Anaményá nyumbá) (ndí mwáála) e. (V) (OBJ) (OBL) (Anaményá) (nyumbá) (ndí mwáála).

(26) 17. The phrasing pattern above is that when there is a focus inside the VP, a domain starts at the verb and ends at the focused constituent and any non-focus constituents each form their own domain. Collectively, the phonological phrase algorithms of Nespor and Vogel (1982), Mchugh (1986), Selkirk (1986), and Chen (1987) expectedly allow (16d) and (16e).. 政治大. However, they fail to derive (16b) and (16c). Therefore, Kanerva proposes that. 立. Chichewa domains instantiate a previously unrecognized level of prosodic structure,. ‧ 國. 學. Focal Phrase (FP), and that this level is intermediate between the phonological phrase. ‧. and the intonational phrase.. Nat. io. sit. y. In summary, the studies of Cho (1990) and Kanerva (1990) have shown a. al. er. problem that the focal phrase of Chichewa and Korean is generally larger than the. n. v i n phonological phrase but smallerCthan phrase. This problem could be h ethen intonational gchi U. resolved by two ways. One way is to include one more focus rule in the phonological phrase formation, as Cho (1990) suggests. The other is to posit a new distinct level between phonological phrase and intonational phrase, as Kanerva (1990) proposes. This thesis will examine the size of the Mandarin focal phrase as to whether it matches the phonological phrase, intonational phrase, or whether it is a truly distinctive pattern of prosodic organization..

(27) 18. 2.4 Theoretical Background 2.4.1 Optimality Theory Optimality Theory (OT) is a constraint-based framework which is proposed by Prince and Smolensky (1993/2004). Unlike traditional transformations, OT disallows serial derivations. The operation in OT mainly involves two systems: Generator (GEN). 政治大. and Evaluator (EVAL). An OT grammar can be schematically represented as in (17).. 立. For every possible input, the generator (GEN) produces a candidate set. Inputs are in. ‧ 國. 學. principle unconstrained linguistic objects such as lexical items in word phonology.. ‧. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. (17) OT Schema. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. A candidate set contains output structures. These structures are possible analyses of the input. According to the principle of inclusiveness, GEN produces all of the analyses of the input that ‘are admitted by very general considerations of structural.

(28) 19. well-formedness’ (McCarthy and Prince 1993), which could include universal properties. The evaluator (EVAL) evaluates candidate sets with respect to particular rankings of the constraint inventory Con. It is often assumed that Con is universal. Its members are simple and conflicting statements about the form of the output or the relation between the output and the input. Because of the conflict between constraints, all conceivable linguistic structures will be assumed to violate at least some of the constraints.. 學. ‧ 國. 立. 政治大. (18) Constraint A >> Constraint B >> {Constraint C, Constraint D} Constraint D. er. sit. y. Constraint C *. *!. al. n. Candidate (c). io. Candidate (b). Constraint B. Nat. ☞Candidate (a). Constraint A. ‧. /Input/. Ch. e n g*!c h i. i n U. v. *. The operation of OT can be demonstrated with the tableau as shown in (18). In the left column, the input is placed at the top left cell and the other columns show the candidates generated from the input by GEN. In the right columns, the constraints of interest are each named in separate columns. The ranking constraints are ranked lower from left to right. Thus, constraint A is ranked higher than constraint B, followed by.

(29) 20. constraint C in a certain language. The finger marker indicates the optimal output of the evaluation while the reverse one indicates the wrong prediction of the optimal output. The solid line distinguishes the priority accorded to one constraint over another. The dotted line between two constraints shows that the ranking is unknown. The asterisk denotes a violation and the exclamation mark represents a fatal violation that rules out a losing candidate. Shaded areas in the tableau indicate that the. 政治大. constraints in the shaded areas should no longer be considered since a higher ranked. 立. constraint has already been violated.. ‧ 國. 學. As can be seen in (18), Candidate (b) is ruled out because Candidate (b) violates. ‧. Constraint A, the highest ranked constraint. Candidate (c) violates Constraint B, and. Nat. io. sit. y. Candidate (a) violates Constraint C. In this tableau, Constraint B is ranked higher than. n. al. er. Constraint C, so Candidate (c) is ruled out. Candidate (a) is the optimal output which. Ch. is indicated by a finger marker ☞.. engchi. i n U. v. 2.4.2 Correspondence Theory McCarthy and Prince (1995) enriched the OT grammar with Correspondence Theory, which defines faithfulness constraints as evaluating the individual elements of the input and the output so that constraints must assess the correspondence and identity of the correspondent elements. Elaborated in many subsequent researches (Ito,.

(30) 21. Kitagawa and Mester 1996, Kager 1999, Nelson 2003), this theory posits the correspondence between the output base and the reduplicant. In Benua (1997), the Basic Model was developed into Transderivational Correspondence Theory, in which identity relation holds between two surface words. The correspondence model can be summarized as (19).. 政治大. (19) Output-to-output Correspondence. 立. 學. ‧ 國. Input IO-correspondence. ‧. Base. Output. n. al. y er. io. sit. Nat. OO-correspondence. i n U. v. Each variable dimension of the representation is governed separately, by a separate. Ch. engchi. faithfulness constraint. The constraints in (20) demand complete and exclusive correspondence between strings.. (20) a. MAX: Every segment in S1 has a correspondent in S2. b. DEP: Every segment in S2 has a correspondent in S1. c. IDENT[F]: Correspondent segments are identical with respect to feature F..

(31) 22. In this study, the IDENT constraint will be adopted to constrain not only the correspondence between input-to-output tones but also the correspondence between base-to-output tones in Mandarin focal tone sandhi.. 2.4.3 Prosodic Correspondence in Tone Sandhi Drawing evidence from tone sandhi in Mandarin, Lin (2005) argues that the. 政治大. correspondence relation can be extended to stand between outputs that are related in. 立. the prosodic structures. Consider the following examples.. ‘buy an umbrella’. {σ{σσ}}. y. ((LH.LH).L). sit. b’ {σ{σσ}}. ‘Armagh’. io. Input: L.L.L → Output: LH.LH.L. n. al. Ch. engchi. er. b. ya er ma. Nat. Input: L.L.L → Output: LH.LH.L. a’. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. (21) a. mai ba san. ((LH.LH).L). i n U. v. In (21a) and (21b), while the morphosyntactic structure is right branching {σ{σσ}}, the tonal domain is left branching ((σσ)σ). In the above examples, the tone sandhi domains cannot be morphosyntactically defined. Thus, Lin proposes a correspondence model for tone sandhi, as in (22)..

(32) 23. (22) Output-to-output Correspondence for Tone Sandhi Input Tone. Input Tone. Tb.Tc. Ta.Tb.Tc. IO-Faith. (Tb’.Tc’). (Ta”.(Tb”.Tc”)). Base Tone. Output Tone. BOT-IDENTITY. 立. (…) = prosodic structure. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. In this correspondence model, two correspondence relations are involved, an input-to-output relation and a base-to-output relation. Unlike the transderivational. ‧. model proposed in Benua (1997), the two tonal outputs are related by the prosodic. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. structures rather than by the morphosyntactic structures. Two freestanding tonal. i n U. v. outputs that are compositionally related are governed by the base-tone-to-output-tone. Ch. engchi. correspondence. For prosodic structures such as ((σσ)1σ)2 and (σ(σσ)1)2, the tonal information in prosodic constituent 1 would serve as the base for constituent 2. The bi-tonal sequence in the inner domain of the tonal output is evaluated with a bi-tonal base with which it shares the same underlying tones. In (22), the base is Tb’.Tc’ and the reference output is Tb”.Tc”. The tonal sequence Tb”.Tc” within the inner prosodic constituent of (Ta”.(Tb”.Tc”)) is evaluated with Tb’.Tc’ for correspondence..

(33) 24. 2.4.4 Generalized Alignment Developed from the edge theory of Selkirk (1986), and Inkelas (1989), McCarthy and Prince (1993) propose the idea of Generalized Alignment, in which the phonological representation of a sentence is constructed through the mapping of the edges of syntactic constituents to the corresponding edges of phonological constituents. Namely, the structural relations between grammatical categories. 政治大. (morphological and phonological) are governed by a single family of constraints. 立. under Optimality Theory: these demand that one type of grammatical constituent. ‧ 國. 學. share a designated edge with some other type of constituent. The definition of. ‧. Generalized Alignment is listed below:. io. sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. (23) Generalized Alignment. Ch. engchi. Align (Cat1, Edge1, Cat2, Edge2) =def. i n U. v. ∀ Cat1 ∃ Cat2 such that Edge1 of Cat1 and Edge2 of Cat2 coincide. Where Cat1, Cat2 ∈ ProsCat ∪ GramCat Edge1, Edge2 ∈ {Right, Left}. In the investigation into Mandarin focal tone sandhi, alignment constraints will be applied to explain the alignment of focal phrase and prosodic foot..

(34) 25. 2.4.5 Cophonology Theory The Theory of Cophonology (Orgun, 1996, Anttila, 1997, and Inkelas & Zoll, 2007) accounts for the nature of the diversity, such as registers, dialects, and free variations, within a language. This theory deals with language-internal diversity by way of re-ranking a set of unspecified constraints. There are different phonological. 政治大. systems that co-exist in a language, and the differences between them lie in reranking. 立. constraints in different morphological or grammatical structures.. ‧ 國. 學. In the Cophonology model, constraints are general and purely phonological and. ‧. are not indexed for specific contexts. The core concept of Cophonology can be. Nat. er. io. sit. y. schematized as in (24).. al. n. v i n C hL (Inkelas and Zoll,U2007) (24) A grammar lattice of language engchi Master Ranking Cons1 >> {Cons2, Cons3}. Copohonology A Cons1 >> Cons2 >> Cons3. Cophonology B Cons1 >> Cons3 >> Cons2.

(35) 26. In a grammar lattice, the core grammar of a language L is placed in the superordinate note, that is, ‘Master Ranking’. Constraints in the core grammar are partially ranked. That is, Cons1 dominates Cons2 and Cons3, but the ranking of Cons2 and Cons3 are not specified. Such specification is determined in the two subgrammars in language L, they are, Cophonology A and Cophonology B. In Cophonology A, Cons2 dominates Cons3, while in Cophonology B, Cons 3 dominates Cons2. Variations in language L. 政治大. are accounted for by these different rankings.. 立. This concept of cophonology will be employed in analyzing Mandarin focal tone. ‧ 國. 學. sandhi in section 4. Variations of focal tone sandhi are observed in different syntactic. ‧. structures, where constraints are reranked.. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(36) CHAPTER 3 DATA ANALYSIS. This chapter analyzes the data from Taiwan youngsters who were born in the 1990s, and proposes certain generalizations about Mandarin focal tone sandhi. Three types of syntactic structures will be discussed, including adverbs and auxiliary verbs in a. 政治大. simple sentence, the flat structure, and the others. I will also define the size of the. 立. focal phrase.. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. 3.1 Data Collection. Nat. io. sit. y. This thesis investigates focal tone sandhi based on data from youngsters, who. er. were born in the 1990s. The studies of Shih (1990) and Hsiao (1991, 1995) were done. n. al. over twenty years ago, so. v i n theCintuition U generation would h e n gof ctheh iyoung. be quite. different from that of the earlier generation. The intuition of the young generation about focal tone sandhi is the primary concern in this study. We restrict our attention to contrastive focus. Other kinds of focus, for instance informational focus (Li, 2009), will not be tested in this study because it does not contradict with a set of stated or predicted alternatives in an explicit way. Consider (1) and (2) for comparison.. 27.

(37) 28. (1) Informational Focus Q: zhangH sanH yaoHL quHL naL? ‘Where will Zhangsan go?’ A: zhangH sanH yaoHL quHL faHL guoLH. ‘Zhangsan will go to France.’. (2) Contrastive Focus. 立. 政治大. Nat. al. er. io. sit. ‘Zhangsan will go to France.’. ‧. A: buHL, zhangH sanH yaoHL quHL faHL guoLH.. y. ‘Will Zhangsan go to the United States?’. 學. ‧ 國. Q: zhangH sanH yaoHL quHL meiL guoLH ma?. n. v i n In the above examples, fa guo C in (1) focus and fa guo in (2) is a h eis nanginformational chi U contrastive focus. In (1), there is no explicit contrast with reference to fa guo, whereas In (2), fa guo contradicts with the stated alternative, mei guo. With the explicit contrast, informants may be easier to aware what and where the focus is. In this thesis, I use question-answer pairs to test the informants. The rationale underlying this test is that a ‘natural’ response to a question should have the same presupposition as the question, that is, the question and answer should have equivalent.

(38) 29. focus structures (Chomsky 1971, Jackendoff, 1972). In this study we make a slight revision. That is, all the pairs include two elements in essence: an interrogative sentence and a response with negation and statement, as shown in (3).. (3) Question-answer Pairs Q: shiHL xiaoL liL maiL mianHL baoH ma?. 政治大. ‘Is it bread which Small Li buys?’. 立. A: buHL, buLH shiHL mianHL baoH, shiHL xiaoL liL maiL shuiL jiaoL.. ‧ 國. 學. ‘No, it’s not bread. It is dumplings which Small Li buys.”. ‧. Nat. io. sit. y. The purpose of the interrogative sentence is to arouse the attention of the informants. al. er. and, more importantly, give them a context to stimulate their production of focal tone. n. v i n C h it negates whatUis asked previously and then sandhi patterns. As for the response, engchi re-describes the statement with the correct target, and so indicates where the contrastive focus lies. In (3), the focus is not on mian bao ‘bread’ but on shui jiao ‘dumplings’ instead. This statement is introduced by the emphatic shi ‘it is’, which is similar to the English cleft construction. In addition, abstract and abstruse contexts are avoided for fear that informants cannot get the meaning. The underlined sentence is our target sentence in this study. At first, informants.

(39) 30. are requested to read the questions and the answers in their mind so that they may familiarize themselves with the context and also realize what the focus is. When the informants are ready and have no problem in reading the test words, the underlined sentences are read at normal speed for recording. In all the examples below, the focus is indicated in the schematic in bold typeface.. 政治大. 3.2 Type A: Adverbs and Auxiliary Verbs in a Simple Sentence. 立. Adverbs and auxiliary verbs may be classified as one category since their. ‧ 國. 學. syntactic behaviors are similar. Adverbs in Mandarin usually occur in pre-predicate. ‧. position, after the subject or after the topic (if there is no subject), as in (4a). Auxiliary. Nat. io. sit. y. verbs also occur in a pre-predicate position, as in (4b). To test the focal tone sandhi of. n. al. er. such words, we have chosen the following members which bear a base tone, as shown in (4).. Ch. engchi. (4) Adverbs and Auxiliary Verbs Examples & gloss yeL ‘also’ a. Adverbs zhiL ‘only’ ganL ‘dare to’ b. Auxiliary Verbs kenL ‘be willing to’. i n U. v.

(40) 31. Example (5a) and (5b) illustrate the focal tone sandhi patterns of adverb zhi and auxiliary verb ken, respectively.. (5) Focused Adverbs and Auxiliary Verbs a. Q: shiHL xiaoL liL buHL zhiL maiL yuL sanL ma?. 政治大. ‘Does Small Li not only want to buy umbrellas?’. 立. Nat. A: buHL, buLH shiHL buHL kenL,. al. er. io. sit. ‘Is Small Mei unwilling to buy umbrellas?’. ‧. b. Q: shiHL xiaoL liL buHL kenL maiL yuL sanL ma?. y. ‘Small Li only wants to buy umbrellas.’. 學. ‧ 國. A: shiHL xiaoL liL zhiL maiL yuL sanL. (LH.L)(LH.L)(LH.L). n. v i n C h yuL sanL. (LH.L)(LH.L)(LH.L) shiHL xiaoL liL kenL maiL engchi U ‘No, it’s not that he’s unwilling. Small Li is willing to buy umbrellas.’. Notice that adverbs differ from auxiliary verbs in the lack of verb-like properties. Although an auxiliary verb must occur with a full-fledged verb, it may occur along with the subject in a context in which the verb is omitted, as in an answer to yes-no question. This implies that there is no context in which an adverb may occur alone.

(41) 32. with the subject of a verb. In (5a), no negation sentence like bu shi bu zhi is provided; instead, the answer is given to the informants in a straightforward way. As shown in (5a) and (5b), respectively, both zhi and ken are at the left edge of the focal phrase and change to a LH tone. They form a disyllabic foot with the main verbs instead of the subjects. This fact indicates that the foot formation starts at the focused adverb and auxiliary verb. In addition, semantic constraints could play a role. 政治大. in the focal phrasing for a focused adverb and auxiliary verb. Take zhi for instance.. 立. Since it is a predicate-modifying adverb, it modifies the entire predicate phrase but. ‧ 國. 學. not the subject. Thus, it forms a disyllabic foot with the main verb mai3.. ‧. When the focal adverb zhi is followed by the verb phrase xiang mai ‘want to. Nat. sit. n. al. er. io (6) Focused Adverb zhi. y. buy’, the foot formation still starts at the focal adverbs.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Q: shiHL xiaoL liL buHL zhiL xiangL maiL yuL sanL ma? ‘Does Small Li not only want to buy umbrellas?’ A: shiHL xiaoL liL zhiL xiangL maiL yuL sanL. (LH.L)((LH.LH.)L) (LH.L) ‘Small Li only wants to buy umbrellas.’. As in (6), zhi forms a trisyllabic foot with the verb phrase xiang mai. The focused.

(42) 33. element zhi is at the left edge of the focal phrase and undergoes tone sandhi. The subject xiao li does not form a trisyllabic foot with zhi but forms a disyllabic foot itself. In short, when adverbs and auxiliary verbs are focused, they are at the left edge of the focal phrase. The foot formation starts at the focused adverbs and auxiliary verbs, so they undergo tone sandhi.. 政治大. 立. 3.3 Type B: the Flat Structure. ‧ 國. 學. This section discusses sentence structures that are syntactically considered as flat. ‧. structures, such as repetition and coordination. We first examine how odd-numbered. Nat. io. sit. y. syllables in a flat structure are grouped with respect to tone sandhi domains. The. n. al. er. relevant examples are given in (7). All the elements in (7) have a base tone and the. Ch. emphatic elements are in boldface.. engchi. i n U. v. (7) Numeral Repetition Q: shiHL wuL wuL wuL wuL wuL ma? ‘Is it 55555?’ a. A: buHL, buLH shiHL, shiHL wuL wuL juiL wuL wuL. ((LH.LH.)L)(LH.L) ‘No, it’s not. It is 55955.’.

(43) 34. b. A: buHL, buLH shiHL, shiHL wuL juiL wuL wuL wuL. (LH.L)((LH.LH.)L) ‘No, it’s not. It is 59555.’ c. A: buHL, buLH shiHL, shiHL wuL wuL wuL juiL wuL. ((LH.LH.)L)(LH.L) ‘No, it’s not. It is 55595.’. The surface tone patterns of the five consecutive same numbers in the interrogative. 政治大. sentence could be (LH.L)((LH.LH.)L), ((LH.LH.)L)(LH.L) or (LH.LH.LH.LH.L). All. 立. of the readings are acceptable without the interference of focus. However, only one. ‧ 國. 學. reading is acceptable when contrastive focus occurs in numeral repetition. When the. ‧. focus is on the number jui in (7a) and (7b), the focused syllables retain the base tone 2.. Nat. io. sit. y. Therefore, the surface tone patterns of (7a) and (7b) are ((LH.LH.)L)(LH.L) and. er. (LH.L)((LH.LH.)L), respectively. This result indicates that the focused element is. al. n. v i n C hfocal phrase and that located at the right edge of the e n g c h i U foot formation ends at the focused. element.. Notice. that. in. (7c),. the. only. acceptable. reading. is. ((LH.LH.)L)(LH.L). The plausible explanation for this is that in Mandarin, the last syllable is forbidden being isolated as a monosyllabic foot. Thus, the penultimate syllable inevitably forms a disyllabic foot with the last syllable. 2. This finding is identical to Wee’s (2010) study on Tianjin focal tone sandhi. Wee discovers that any syllable in a given string that receives focal stress will retain its citation tone in Tianjin. The effect of focal stress is that it creates a rhythmic break which effectively determines prosodic constituency. a.. /RRR/ → HRR. b.. /LLL/ → RLL. c.. /RRR/ → RHR. d.. /LLL/ → LRL.

(44) 35. Similar focal phrasing takes place in coordination structures. Equally, all of the syllables in the following instances have a base tone. The possible regular reading could be (LH.L)((LH.LH.)L), ((LH.LH.)L)(LH.L) or (LH.LH.LH.LH.L). When focus occurs in coordination structure, only one reading is acceptable.. (8) Coordination Structure. 政治大. a. Q: shiHL MaL JiangL HaoL LiL XuL ma?. 立. ‘Is it Ma, Jiang, Hao, Li, Xu?’ (last names). ‧ 國. 學. A: buHL, buLH shiHL JiangL,. ‧. shiHL MaL LuL HaoL LiL XuL. (LH.L)((LH. LH.) L). Nat. b. Q: shiHL maL gouL yiL shuL niaoL ma?. n. al. Ch. engchi. ‘Is it horses, dogs, ants, rats, and birds?’. er. io. sit. y. ‘No, it’s not Jiang. It is Ma, Lu, Hao, Li, Xu.’. i n U. v. A: buHL, buLH shiHL huL, shiHL maL gouL huL shuL niaoL. ((LH.LH.)L)(LH.L) ‘No, it’s not ants. It is horses, dogs, tigers, rats, and birds.’. In (8a), Lu is where the focus lies and it forms a disyllabic foot with the monosyllabic word Ma. As for (8b), the focused syllable hu, which is located in the middle of the.

(45) 36. five sequential monosyllabic words, forms a trisyllabic foot with ma and gou. Both Lu and hu retain their base tones. Based on the instances above, the focused syllable would still be at the right position in a foot. This fact confirms the previous assumption that foot formation ends at focused syllables. When a focused element is of more than one syllable, the focal tone sandhi patterns still accord with the previous assumption. Examples (9a) to (9c) show the. 政治大. focal tone sandhi patterns of disyllabic focal elements in different sentence positions.. 學. ‧ 國. 立 (9) Disyllabic Numeral Repetition. ‧. Q: shiHL wuL wuL wuL wuL wuL ma?. Nat. io. sit. y. ‘Is it 55555?’. n. al. er. a. A: buHL, buLH shiHL, shiHL juiL juiL wuL wuL wuL. (LH.L)((LH.LH.)L). Ch. ‘No, it’s not. It is 99555.’. engchi. i n U. v. b. A: buHL, buLH shiHL, shiHL wuL juiL juiL wuL wuL. ((LH.LH.)L)(LH.L) ‘No, it’s not. It is 59955.’ c. A: buHL, buLH shiHL, shiHL wuL wuL wuL juiL juiL. ((LH.LH.)L)(LH.L) ‘No, it’s not. It is 55599.’ d. A: buHL, buLH shiHL, shiHL wuL wuL juiL juiL wuL. (LH.L)((LH.LH.)L) ‘No, it’s not. It is 55995.’.

(46) 37. The focal elements are jui jui. As seen in (9a), (9b) and (9c), the second focal syllable, number jui, retains its base tone. This fact indicates that the foot formation ends at the last focal element no matter how many focal syllables exist in a sentence. Notice that in (9d), the focal syllables form a group with the last syllable to create a trisyllabic foot. Again, this is an undesirable foot formation pattern, as it is not permissible for. 政治大. the last syllable to remain isolated in Mandarin. In the next section we will look at. 立. how focus affects foot formation with respect to other types of sentence.. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. 3.4 Type C: Other Types of Sentences. Nat. io. sit. y. Aside from Type A and Type B, this study investigates other types of sentences.. al. er. The pattern which is common among the informants is considered the unmarked. n. v i n C happears less frequently reading, whereas the pattern which e n g c h i U is considered the marked reading. Section 3.3.1 will discuss the unmarked focal tone sandhi while section 3.3.2 the marked focal tone sandhi.. 3.4.1 Unmarked Focal Tone Sandhi Patterns The unmarked focal tone sandhi is discussed in this section. Focused elements are examined in the following order: subjects, verbs, and objects. First consider the.

(47) 38. focused subjects, as in (10).. (10) Focused Subjects a. Q: shiHL maoH yaoL xiaoL baoLma? ‘Is it cats which bite Small Bao? A: buHL, buLH shiHL maoH, shiHL guoL yaoL xiaoL baoL. (LH.L)(LH.L) ‘No, it’s not cats. It is dogs which bite Small Bao.’. 治政 b. Q: shiHL xiaoL mingLH maiL xiaoL shuoH ma?大立 ‧ 國. 學. ‘Is it Small Ming who buys novels?’ A: buHL, buLH shiHL xiaoL mingL,. ‧. shiHL xiaoL meiL maiL xiaoL shuoH. (LH.L)(LH.(L.H)). sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. ‘No, it’s not Small Ming. It is Small Mei who buys novels.’. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. In (10a), the monosyllabic focal subject guo forms a disyllabic foot with the verb, yao, and undergoes tone sandhi. In (10b), since the disyllabic subject xiao mei contains a pair of immediate constituents, it forms a disyllabic foot. The verb mai and the object xiao shuo together construct a trisyllabic foot. Based on the above examples, it appears that foot formation starts at the focused element. Because subjects are usually in sentence-initial positions, foot formation would start with the subjects in non-focal readings. Hence, the focal readings in (10a) and (10a) are inevitably the.

(48) 39. same as non-focal readings. Let us now look at the situation where the verb and object are under focus.. (11) Focused Verbs Q: shiHL gouL zhuiH nuL renLH ma? ‘Do dogs chase women?’. 政治大. A: buHL, buLH shiHL zhuiH, shiHL gouL yaoL nuL renLH. (L)(LH.(L.LH)). 立. ‘No, it’s not chasing (that the dogs do). Dogs bite the boss.’. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. The non-focal reading in (11) is (LH.L)(LH.L). The subject guo and the verb yao form. Nat. io. sit. y. a disyllabic foot while the object nu ren form another disyllabic foot. However, the. al. er. focal verb yao in (11) forms a trisyllabic foot with the object nu ren, located at the left. n. v i n edge of the trisyllabic foot. ThisC causes h e yao h i Uto a LH, which is different from n gtocchange non-focal reading.. (12) Focused Objects a. Q: shiHL niL youL yuL yiH ma? ‘Is it raincoats which you have? A: buHL, buLH shiHL yuL yiH, shiHL niL youL yuL sanL. (LH.L)(LH.L).

(49) 40. ‘No, it’s not raincoats. It is umbrellas which you have.’ b. Q: shiHL nuL youL maiL shouL lianHL ma? ‘Is it bracelets which (my) girlfriend buys? A: buHL, buLH shiHL shouL lianHL, shiHL nuL youL maiL shouL biaoL. ((LH.LH.)L) (LH.L) ‘No, it’s not bracelets. It is watches which (my) girlfriend buys.’. 立. 政治大. The focal tone patterns of objects, illustrated in (12), are similar to those of the. ‧ 國. 學. subjects in (10) and the verbs in (11), respectively. As for the focused yu san in (12a). ‧. and shou biao in (12b), they are in sentence-final positions. The focused object does. Nat. io. sit. y. not form a foot with the verb. Take (12b) for instance. The phrasing pattern is. al. er. ((LH.LH.)L)(LH.L) but not (LH.L)(L.(LH.L)). This fact indicates that the foot. n. v i n Celement formation starts with the focused includes the following syllables, so the h e n and gchi U focused element undergoes tone sandhi. The focal phrasing patterns can be predicted by Shih’s and Hsiao’s proposals, when the focal boundary is placed at the left side of the focal element. However, their proposals have problems in (13).. (13) Q: shiHL niL maiL chiL ma?.

(50) 41. ‘Is it rulers which you buy? A: buHL, buLH shiHL chiL, shiHL niL maiL biL. (LH.(LH.L)) (cf.*(LH.L.)(L)) ‘No, it’s not rulers. It is pens which you buy.’. In (13), the focal boundary does not occur at the left edge of the focused monosyllabic object bi, which is thus able to join with the verb first and the subject to form a. 政治大. trisyllabic foot. This phenomenon could be attributed to the prosodic constraint in. 立. Mandarin that a monosyllabic foot cannot occur in sentence-final position.. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. 3.4.2 Marked Focal Tone Sandhi Patterns. Nat. io. sit. y. Let us now turn to the marked focal tone sandhi patterns. Some data from 3.4.1. n. al. er. are reanalyzed here for comparison. The following examples display the tone sandhi patterns of the focused subject.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. (14) Focused Subjects a. Q: shiHL maoH yaoL xiaoL baoL ma? ‘Is it cats which bite Small Bao? A: buHL, buLH shiHL maoH, shiHL guoL yaoL xiaoL baoL. (L)(L.(LH.L)) ‘No, it’s not cats. It is dogs which bite Small Bao.’.

(51) 42. b. Q: shiHL xiaoL mingLH maiL shuiL guoL ma? ‘Is it Small Ming who buys fruits?’ A: buHL, buLH shiHL xiaoL mingLH, shiHL xiaoL meiL maiL shuiL guoL. (LH.L)(L.(LH.L)) ‘No, it’s not Small Ming. It is Small Mei who buys fruits.’. 政治大. As we can see, when the subject is emphasized, the subject retains its base tone. In. 立. (14a), the non-focal reading is (LH.L)(LH.L), but in focal reading the focal boundary. ‧ 國. 學. is placed at the right edge of the focused subject; guo thus forms a monosyllabic foot retains a. low tone. Similarly,. ‧. and. in (14b), the non-focal reading. is. Nat. io. sit. y. ((LH.LH.)L)(LH.L), but in focal reading the focal boundary appears after the focused. al. er. subject xiao mei, which form a disyllabic foot and the second syllable mei does not. n. v i n C hwe also observe Uthat the focal syllables can be undergo tone sandhi. In addition, engchi followed by a short prosodic pause, causing prosodic restructuring and stopping foot formation after the focused elements.. (15) Focused Verbs a. Q: shiHL xiaoL liL maiHL xiaoL maoH ma? ‘Does Small Li sell kittens?’.

(52) 43. A: buHL, buLH shiHL maiHL, shiHL xiaoL liL maiL xiaoL maoH. ((LH.LH.)L)(L.H) ‘No, it’s not selling (that Small Li does). Small Li buys kittens.’ b. Q: shiHL gouL zhuiH laoL banL ma? ‘Do dogs chase the boss?’ A: buHL, buLH shiHL zhuiH, shiHL gouL yaoL laoL banL. (LH.L)(LH.L). 政治大. ‘No, it’s not chasing (that the dogs do). Dogs bite the boss.’. 立. ‧ 國. 學. The same phenomenon is observed when the verb is under focus. The phrasing. ‧. pattern in (15a) is different from the regular reading, (LH.L)(LH.(L.H)). In (15a), the. Nat. io. sit. y. focused verb mai forms a trisyllabic foot with the subject xiao li and maintains a base. al. er. tone. The focused verb mai does not form a trisyllabic foot with the object xiao mao.. n. v i n As a result, xiao mao can only C form h aedisyllabic i UIn (15b), the verb yao does not n g c hfoot. form a trisyllabic foot with the object lao ban. Instead, it is located at the right edge of the disyllabic foot. The focal tone sandhi pattern ends up just matching the regular reading, (LH.L)(LH.L). Even though the sentence lacks a subject, as (16) illustrates, some speakers perform pause after the focused verb mai. The focused verb mai is isolated as a monosyllabic foot and retains a base tone. The focal reading is thus different from the.

(53) 44. regular reading, (LH.L)(LH.L).. (16) Focused Verb in Subjectless Sentence Q: shiHL maiHL xiaoL miL jiuL ma? ‘(Do you) sell rice wine?’ A: buHL, buLH shiHL maiHL, shiHL maiL xiaoL miL jiuL. (L)(L.(LH.L)). 政治大. ‘No, it’s not selling (that I do). (I) buy rice wine.’. 學. ‧ 國. 立. Now let us turn to focused objects, as in (17).. ‧. Nat. a. Q: shiHL niL youL yuL yiH ma?. n. al. Ch. engchi. ‘Is it raincoats which you have?. er. io. sit. y. (17) Focused Objects. i n U. v. A: buHL, buLH shiHL yuL yiH, shi4 niL youL yuL sanL. (LH.L)(LH.L) ‘No, it’s not raincoats. It is umbrellas which you have.’ b. Q: shiHL nuL youL maiL shouL lianHL ma? ‘Is it bracelets which (my) girlfriend buys? A: buHL, buLH shiHL shouL lianHL, shiHL nuL youL maiL shouL biaoL. ((LH.LH)L)(LH.L).

(54) 45. ‘No, it’s not bracelets. It is watches which (my) girlfriend buys.’. Since the word order of Mandarin limits the appearance of an object in the sentence-final position, the object cannot precede the verb or subject except for the effect of topicalization. The focused element at the right edge of sentence sanctions the surface tone patterns of (17a) and (17b), which are inevitably the same as the non-focal readings.. 立. 政治大. In sum, the marked pattern reveals an opposite focal phrasing pattern compared. ‧ 國. 學. with that of the unmarked pattern. That is, the focused element can be followed by a. ‧. prosodic pause, causing prosodic restructuring and stopping foot formation after the. Nat. io. sit. y. focused elements. Thus, the focused syllable always retains the base tone. Certainly,. al. er. as Shih (1990) argues, it is hard to have a prosodic pause in such a short sentence.. n. v i n However, if a shift in the focalC phrasing regulating that the focused element be h e nrule, gchi U placed at the right edge of the foot, were indeed to occur, it could be attributed to an ongoing language change. The adoption of this change may be quite slow but it may be observed in the production of some speakers.. 3.5 Focal Boundary vs. Lexical Items The previous data show that the focal boundary can be freely placed before or.

(55) 46. after the focused element in different types of sentence. However, there are some restrictions on the application of the focal boundary. Take the immediate disyllabic constituent for example. When the internal element is under focus, the boundary will not lie inside the word. In other words, the focal boundary is unable to affect the foot formation of lexical items. The evidence is shown in the focal phrasing patterns in (18a) and (18b).. 政治大. 立. (18) Focused Lexical Items. ‧ 國. 學. a. Q: shiHL tieL chiL ma?. Nat. io. sit. A: buHL, buLH shiHL tieL chiL, shiHL tieL biL. (LH.L). y. ‧. ‘Are these iron rulers?’. n. al. er. ‘No, these are not iron rulers. These are iron pens.’ b. Q: shiHL luL yiL ma?. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. ‘Are these aluminum chairs?’ A: buHL, buLH shiHL luL yiL, shiHL tieL yiL. (LH.L) ‘No, these are not aluminum chairs. These are iron chairs.’. The contrastive meaning in (18a) lies in the circumstance that different objects are made of the same material. The former referent is rulers but the later pens. If speakers.

(56) 47. maintain the use of the left-edge grammar of the focal phrasing, the focal boundary would be put at the left edge of the focused syllables since the only difference between these two words is chi and bi. And, under such a situation, the output *(L)(L) would be ill-formed. However, this is not the case because the first syllable still undergoes tone sandhi. On the other hand, for (18b), the difference in the objects, the chairs, is that they are made of different materials. If speakers hold the right-edge. 政治大. grammar of the focal phrasing, they would separate the first syllable and the second. 立. syllables, creating an incorrect focal phrasing pattern, *(L)(L).. ‧ 國. 學. Here the Lexical Integrity Hypothesis (Siegel 1974, Bauer 1978, Williams 1981,. ‧. DiSciullo & Williams 1987) can throw some light on this mystery. The hypothesis. Nat. io. sit. y. proposes that no phrasal-level rules may affect a proper subpart of a word. For. al. er. example, the form of conjunction reduction like [tie han lu] yi ‘iron and aluminum. n. v i n Ctieh yi should be considered chair’ can never be found. Thus, e n g c h i U a word and the internal structure is not affected by the focal boundary. The disyllabic names, such as xiao ming ‘Small Ming’ and lao li ‘Old Li’, provide other evidence that the internal structure of lexical item is not affected by the application of focal boundary. Take xiao ming ‘Small Ming’ for example. Since xiao ming ‘Small Ming’ is not necessarily someone who is really small or short, it is awkward to say the semantic counterpart is da ming ‘Big Ming’. Such words should.

(57) 48. be treated as a word or a single lexical item. The focal boundary should be placed at the edge of a lexical item no matter how many syllables the word has.. 3.6 Generalization of Focal Tone Sandi in Mandarin This thesis has investigated three types of focal tone sandhi in Mandarin. Importantly, three types of focal tone sandhi patterns are found among these data. The. 政治大. generalization of this concern can be formulated as in (19), (20) and (21):. 立. ‧ 國. 學. (19) Type A: If the focus is on auxiliary verbs and adverbs in a simple sentence:. ‧. a. The focused element is at the left edge of the focal phrase;. Nat. io. sit. y. b. The foot formation starts at the focused element;. al. er. c. The focused element undergoes tone sandhi with the following syllable;. n. v i n d. The remaining syllables C undergo foot formation. h e nregular gchi U. (20) Type B: If the focus is on the syntactic element in the flat structure: a. The focused element is at the right edge of focal phrase; b. The foot formation ends at the focused element; c. The focused element retains the base tone; d. The remaining syllables undergo regular foot formation..

(58) 49. In essence, the above two parameters display an opposite way in focal phrasing. Namely, (19) requires the foot formation to start at the focused element, whereas (20) requires it to be ended at the focused element. The remaining non-focused syllables, from left to right, undergo regular foot formation. When focus occurs in Type C, two alternative focal phrasing patterns are. 政治大. observed among the informants. In other words, these two patterns are considered free. 立. variations, as illustrated in (21).. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. (21) Type C: If the focus is on the syntactic element in other types of sentences:. Nat. io. sit. y. a. Unmarked Pattern. n. al. er. (i) The focused element is at the left edge of the focal phrase;. i n C (ii) The foot formation starts element; hatethen focused gchi U. v. (iii) The focused element undergoes tone sandhi with the following syllable; (iv) The remaining syllables undergo regular foot formation. b. Marked Pattern (i) The focused element is at the right edge of the focal phrase; (ii) The foot formation ends at the focused element; (iii) The focused element retains the base tone;.

(59) 50. (iv) The remaining syllables undergo regular foot formation.. In this present study, the pattern which shows that the foot formation starts at the focused element is more common among the informants, whereas the foot formation ends at the focused element occurs less frequently among them. In terms of markedness, the common pattern is unmarked while the less frequent pattern is marked.. 3.7 The Size of the Mandarin Focal Phrase. 學. ‧ 國. 立. 政治大. ‧. This section examines the size of the Mandarin focal phrase and tries to see. Nat. sit. al. er. io. intonational phrase.. y. whether the Mandarin focal phrase is identical to foot, phonological phrase, or. n. v i n C h principles proposed This study adopts the phrasing e n g c h i U by Hsiao (1991, 1995) to. examine the size of the focal phrase in Mandarin. The principles are shown below:. (22) Mandarin Phrasing Principles a. Intonational Phrase (IP): […x…]SU, where x = phonological phrase b. Phonological Phrase (Ph):.

(60) 51. {left, Xmax(+b)}, where (+ b) = branching. As (22) dictates, IPs are sense units (SUs) phrased by grouping together Phs, which are marked at the left edge of an Xmax only if the Xmax is branching. Xmax means the maximal projection of certain parts of speech, such as VP, NP, etc.. When an IP consists of two or more syllables, it must be subject to the Sense Unit Condition (SUC) 3. An intonational phrase is built upon a phonological phrase so an intonational. phrase cannot cross the boundary of an intonational phrase.. 學. ‧ 國. 政治大 phrase could contain several phonological phrases. In other words, a phonological 立 ‧. Consider Type C first. In this study, it is found that there are unmarked and. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. marked focal patterns in Type C, as shown in (23) and (24), respectively.. Ch. (23) ‘Dogs bite women.’ (unmarked reading). guoL {yaoL #S[. #VP[. [. #NP[. (LH. v. renLH}focal phrase Ph. ]%[ (L). 3. nuL. engchi. i n U. ] (L. LH)). IP tone sandhi pattern. Selkirk (1984) proposes a sense unit to condition intonational phrasing in English, assuming that two constituents Ci, Cj form a sense unit if (a) or (b) is true of the semantic interpretation of the sense: a. Ci modifies Cj (a head) b. Ci is an argument of Cj (a head)..

(61) 52. In (23), the Ph boundary #S, #VP, and #NP are placed before guo, yao, and nu, respectively because these words are maximal projections and have syntactic branching. Thus, in (23), there are three phonological phrases: guo, yao, and nu ren. Since the focal phrase is yao nu ren, the size of the focal phrase is proved to be larger than that of the phonological phrase. However, the IP boundary (%) reveals that the. 政治大. focal phrase matches the intonational phrase. The tone sandhi pattern does not cross. 立. the IP boundary.. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. (24) ‘Dogs bite women.’ (marked reading). n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. focal phrase{guoL. #S[ [ (LH. yaoL}. #VP[. C h renLH engchi. nuL. #NP[. v. Ph. ]%[ L). i n U. ] (L. LH). IP tone sandhi pattern. In (24), the focal phrase guo yao is built upon two phonological phrases but is identical to an intonational phrase. In short, the examination shows that when focal phrasing occurs in Type C, the focal phrase is identical to the intonational phrase..

(62) 53. Following are example of the adverb zhi from Type A.. (25) ‘Small Li only wants to buy umbrellas.’. xiaoL liL. {zhiL. #S[. #ADVP[ ] L). #VP[. 立. [. ((LH. 政 #治 [ 大 NP. Ph ]. LH). L). (LH. L). IP. 學. (LH. %. tone sandhi pattern. ‧. ‧ 國. [. xiangL maiL yuL sanL}focal phrase. sit. y. Nat. In (25), there are four phonological phrases: xiao li, zhi, xiang mai, and yu san. The. n. al. er. io. focal phrase begins at the focused element zhi and ends at NP yu san. Clearly, the. Ch. i n U. v. focal phrase is bigger than the phonological phrase. However, since zhi modifies the. engchi. verb phrase xiang mai and yu san is the internal argument of xiang mai, they together form an intonational phrase. As a result, the focal phrase matches the intonational phrase. In conclusion, the size of the focal phrase in Mandarin is bigger than the phonological phrase, which seems to support the findings of Cho (1990) and Kanerva (1990) in Korean and Chichewa, respectively. However, though bigger than the.

(63) 54. phonological phrase, the focal phrase does not belong to an intermediate prosodic hierarchy between phonological phrase and intonational phrase because the focal phrase matches the intonational phrase. In other words, no mismatch between the focal phrase and the intonational phrase could be found in the present data. Thus, I suggest that the focal phrase in Mandarin matches the intonational phrase.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(64) CHAPTER 4 OT ANALYSIS. This chapter analyzes Mandarin focal tone sandhi under the framework of Optimality Theory. Two sets of constraints are proposed in this chapter, the prosodic constraints, which evaluate the prosodic candidates and determine the tonal domain, and the tonal. 政治大. constraints, which evaluate the tonal candidates. It will show that with these two sets. 立. of constraints, focal tone sandhi in Mandarin can be accounted for successfully.. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. 4.1 Prosodic Constraints for Mandarin Regular Tone Sandhi. Nat. io. sit. y. According to the theory proposed by Shih (1986), the best units of prosodic. er. structure in Mandarin are disyllabic feet. The immediate constituents in a sentence are. al. n. v i n C h speech, there U joined into disyllabic feet. In non-focal e n g c h i is no monosyllabic foot; it joins with a neighboring foot; assuming that each of the syllables should be parsed into feet. With these basic properties, four prosodic constraints are listed in (1-5).. (1) PARSE-σ: parse syllables into feet. (Prince & Smolensky 1993) (2) ALIGN-L(IC, Ft): the left edge of every pair of terminal immediate constituents (IC) coincides with the left edge of a foot (Ft).. 55.

(65) 56. (3) ALIGN-R(IC, Ft): the right edge of every pair of terminal immediate constituents (IC) coincides with the right edge of a foot (Ft). (4) FTMIN: at least two syllables per foot. (Hsiao 2006) (5) FTMAX: no more than two syllables per foot. (Hsiao 2006). The idea of Foot Binarity comes from the widely attested observation that feet ideally. 政治大. consist of exactly two elements, morae or syllables (cf. Prince 1980, McCarthy &. 立. Prince 1986, Kager 1989, Hayes 1994). In other words, metrical feet can be either. ‧ 國. 學. syllabic or moraic. The foot types laid out in (6) below is proposed in McCarthy and. ‧. Prince (1986) and Hayes (1987) to account for Hayes’ (1985) typological findings. L. Nat. sit. n. al. er. io (6) Foot Types. y. stands for light syllable and H stands for heavy syllable:. Ch. Iambic. Trochaic. Syllabic. LH. H, LL. σσ. engchi. i n U. v. LL, H. The Prosodic Hierarchy and Foot Binarity, taken together, license the notion of ‘‘Minimal Word’’ (Prince 1980, Broselow 1982, McCarthy and Prince 1986, 1990, 1991a, 1991b). According to the Prosodic Hierarchy, any instance of the category.