Cross-Generational Analysis of Basic Vowel Changes in Zhongyuan Mandarin: An Experimental Investigation

Abstract

This study mainly explores the cross-generational differences of basic vowels in Zhongyuan Mandarin. By adopting speech materials of two generations from seven cities in Henan Province, namely, Kaifeng, Shangqiu, Xuchang, Luohe, Zhoukou, Nanyang, and Zhumadian, we attempt to identify the positional features of each vowel in two generations with the acoustic vowel charts and the V-value charts, to observe the cross-generational differences of each vowel through the main distribution vowel charts, and to predict the future tendencies of the vowels with the help of the skewness chart.