Place contrast enhancement: The case of the alveolar and retroflex sibilant production in two dialects of Mandarin

Sibilant Fricative Merging in Taiwan Mandarin: An Investigation of Tongue Postures using Ultrasound Imaging

“…Crucially, those who substituted dental [s] for retroflex [ʂ] did so consistently, even in speech with prosodic prominence, suggesting that the substitution is a neutralizing process. Along similar lines, Chang (2012) elicited sibilants with and without contrastive focus and found the CoG measurements for Taiwan Mandarin fricatives to be similar to those of Beijing Mandarin: mean CoG for dental [s] at 9115.6 Hz (Beijing) and 8757.6 Hz (Taiwan Mandarin), while for retroflex [ʂ] CoG was lower at 5160.7 Hz (Beijing) and 6224.1 Hz (Taiwan Mandarin) (cf. Chang, 2012, Table 3.6).…”

“…Earlier studies on sibilant fricatives have demonstrated that the three sibilant fricatives differ from each other in spectral peak locations (in Hz) and in spectral moments, such as center of gravity (CoG) and kurtosis (e.g., Forrest, Weismer, Milenkovic, & Dougall, 1988; Lee, Zhang, & Li, 2014; see also McMurray & Jongman, 2011, for a summary). Among these, CoG is considered as one of the most reliable acoustic measures and is widely studied cross-linguistically (e.g., Chang & Shih, 2015; Gordon, Barthmaier, & Sands, 2002; Jeng, 2006; Jongman, Wayland, & Wong, 2000; Lee et al, 2014). Crucially, the CoG is negatively correlated with the length of the front cavity (see Fant, 1960; Stevens, 1998, for discussion).…”

“…While the three-way contrast of sibilant fricatives is also true of Taiwan Mandarin, the phonetic contrast between [s] and [ʂ] may be lost or enhanced for some speakers depending on prosodic and sociolinguistic factors (e.g., Chang & Shih, 2015; Chuang & Fon, 2010). For example, the alleged sibilant merging in Taiwan Mandarin [s] and [ʂ] could be attributed to the exposure to Taiwan Southern Min, a language widely spoken in Taiwan that notably lacks retroflex fricatives (Chuang & Fon, 2010).…”

“…Compared with Beijing Mandarin, Taiwan Mandarin is understudied in terms of the acoustic and articulatory correspondence across sibilant fricatives. Until recently, acoustic measurements of Taiwan Mandarin sibilants had not been documented (e.g., Chang, 2012; Chuang & Fon, 2010). In an investigation of the role of prosodic prominence on the realization of [s] and [ʂ] in Taiwan Mandarin spontaneous speech, Chuang and Fon (2010) found that speakers demonstrate varying degrees of sibilant merging (or “substitution,” in their terminology) in terms of centroid frequency and concluded that the observed [s–ʂ] merging is dependent on gender as well as region and may be reflected in accented or unaccented conditions.…”

Nasal coda neutralization in Shanghai Mandarin: Articulatory and perceptual evidence

“…If outcomes are modulated by segmental context, as may be the case in Shanghai Mandarin, neutralization can be assessed with respect to substantive properties of this context; in the case of Shanghai Mandarin, for instance, neutralization may prove to be mediated by perceptual or articulatory properties of the preceding vowels. Unconditioned merger in place of articulation (Bukmaier, Harrington, & Kleber, 2014;Chang & Shih, 2015;Jannedy & Weirich, 2017;Chiu, Wei, Noguchi, & Yamane, 2019) does not afford this opportunity because it applies regardless of segmental context.…”