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Prosodic focus in three northern Wu dialects: Wuxi, Suzhou and Ningbo

Wang, B; Zhang, Y; Xu, Y; Ding, H; (2017) Prosodic focus in three northern Wu dialects: Wuxi, Suzhou and Ningbo. In: Botinis, Antonis, (ed.) Proceedings of 8th Tutorial and Research Workshop on Experimental Linguistics. (pp. pp. 117-120). National and Kapodistrian University of Athens: Athens, Greece. Green open access

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Abstract

The present study investigated three northern Wu dialects: Wuxi, Suzhou, and Ningbo. It is found that, in all three dialects, focus is encoded by increasing the maximum F0 and duration of focused words, and lowering and compressing the F0 and pitch range of post-focus words. These results are consistent with previous findings about Wu dialect in Shanghai. Northern Wu dialects therefore seem to encode focus in a similar way to Beijing Mandarin, but different from many languages/dialects spoken in southern China. This finding, together with evidence from gene studies and migration history of Wu areas, provide further support for the inheritance hypothesis of PFC, according to which all languages with PFC are descendants of a common proto-language in the Middle East.

Type: Proceedings paper
Title: Prosodic focus in three northern Wu dialects: Wuxi, Suzhou and Ningbo
Event: ExLing 2017
Location: Heraklion, Crete, Greece
Dates: 19 June 2017 - 22 June 2017
ISBN-13: 9789604661626
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Publisher version: http://www.exlingworkshop.com/40-exling-2017/140-e...
Language: English
Additional information: © 2017 Antonis Botinis and authors. This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: Wu dialect, prosody, focus, post-focus-compression (PFC)
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10042903
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