MOTOR SPEECH DISORDERS IN CHINESE Chinese, spoken by approximately 20% of the world's population, is the most commonly spoken language in the world (Fung, 1990). There is some debate regarding whether varieties of spoken Chinese should be considered dialects or separate language. Here, we regard them as separate languages. The various languages of Chinese are considered united by a common written system, although this characterization is problematic for Cantonese, which has many colloquial expressions with no written form (Bauer & Benedict, 1997). In this chapter, we focus on two of the most common Chinese languages, Cantonese and Mandarin (Putonghua). Cantonese is spoken in Hong Kong, Southern China and many overseas Chinese communities. Mandarin, also known as Standard Chinese, is the official national language of China and Taiwan, and is one of the four official languages of Singapore. Cantonese Detailed descriptions of Cantonese phonology can be found in Bauer and Benedict (1997), Cheung (1986) and Zee (1991). There have been active debates about several aspects of Cantonese phonology, including (a) the treatment of final glides/diphthongs, (b) the nature of the consonants /kw/ and /kw h /, and (c) the number of lexical tones. In this chapter, we have generally adopted the positions of Bauer and Benedict (1997). Syllable structure. Traditionally, Chinese syllables have been described using an onset, a rime (comprising an obligatory vowel and an optional coda) and a tone. We adopt here an alternate model of the syllable structure (Bauer & Benedict, 1997), which takes account of the two permissible syllabic nasals, /m/ and /ŋ/. The structure is: (C1) V1 or Cn (C2 or V2), where C1 = initial consonant, V1 = vowel, Cn = syllabic nasal consonant, C2 = final consonant, and V2 = ending vowel (second portion of diphthong); portions in parentheses are optional. Over 98% of Cantonese syllables are CV or CVC in structure (Wang, 1941, cited in Lau & So, 1988). Tone, which is carried on the vowel portion of the syllable, is obligatory.
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