Xu, Y;
Lee, A;
(2017)
Effect of speech rate on pre-low raising in Cantonese.
In:
Tonal Aspects of Languages 2016.
(pp. pp. 75-79).
ISCA
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Abstract
This paper investigates the effect of speech rate on pre-low raising in Cantonese. Pre-low raising is an anticipatory tonal process where a high tone is raised when followed by a low tone (i.e. the trigger). Six native speakers of Cantonese were recorded saying a disyllable in 36 tone combinations (6 tones×6 tones) at two speech rates (normal and slow). It was found that in slow speech pre-low raising only occurred when the trigger was extremely low in pitch, whereas at normal speech rate it was observed in more tonal contexts. It is argued that pre-low raising is a result of enhanced cricothyroid activity in preparation for an upcoming low pitch target.
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