The nature of variation in the tone Sandhi patterns of Wuxi Wu

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2017-10, Vol.142 (4), p.2519-2519
• Main Authors: Yan, Hanbo, Zhang, Jie
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/1.5014203

The Northern Wu Chinese dialect of Wuxi has two different tone patterns in disyllables—a pattern with tone sandhi that involves a synchronic chain-shift and a no sandhi pattern, and the two patterns apply variably. This study investigates the nature of this variation. Seventy-one native speakers participated in three rating experiments that investigated disyllables “subjective frequency, semantic transparency, and the variant forms” perceptual goodness. Results show that modifier + noun combinations prefer the sandhi form more than verb + noun combinations. Lexical frequency has a positive effect on sandhi application in both modifier + noun and verb + noun items. Semantically transparent items are less likely to undergo tone sandhi, but only for verb + noun combinations. These results are interpreted with respect to the properties of wordhood in Wuxi and Chinese dialects in general and the productivity of the chain-shift tone sandhi pattern observed in an earlier production study.