The articulatory properties of apical vowels in Hefei Mandarin

Abstract

Apical vowels are widely observed across Chinese dialects, such as the rime of [sɹ̩55] ‘think’ in Mandarin Chinese, which is a syllabic approximant homorganic to its preceding sibilant. The apical vowels in Hefei Mandarin differ from those in Mandarin Chinese and most other languages in three aspects: (i) there are three phonetic apical vowels [ɹ̩], [ɹ̩ʷ], and [ɻ̩] while others usually have one or two, (ii) the alveolar apical [ɹ̩] appears after both homorganic and non-homorganic consonants, e.g. [sɹ̩] vs. [pɹ̩], and (iii) there is a phonological contrast between an unrounded apical [ɹ̩] and a rounded apical [ɹ̩ʷ], e.g. [sɹ̩] vs. [sɹ̩ʷ]. The articulatory properties of the three apical vowels were examined in this study using ultrasound techniques and the results revealed that: (i) the commonalities of tongue gestures for the apical vowels include a retracted tongue root, a lowered tongue dorsum or blade, or both, together with a coronal constriction implemented with the blade and/or the tip; (ii) lip gestures are involved in distinguishing the three apical segments; (iii) the three segments each have its distinct articulatory gestures within a speaker that cannot be simply attributed to the influence from their preceding consonants, with [ɹ̩] and [ɹ̩ʷ] involving a grooving in the front part of the tongue and [ɻ̩] involving a retraction of tongue body in the back region of the vocal tract; (iv) the articulatory gesture of [ɹ̩] after a homorganic consonant, e.g. in [sɹ̩], is similar to that after a non-homorganic consonant, e.g. in [pɹ̩], suggesting an independent articulatory target for this segment.

Hefei Mandarin

“…Mean HNR values of the syllabic consonants [® `® Ẁ " `] and [i] in Hefei Mandarin.Table4, the mean HNR values for [®] and [" ] were in general lower than that of /i/, indicating a greater proportion of aperiodic energy in the two syllabic segments, consistent with the results of visual inspection in previous studies such asKong et al (2019). On the other hand, Table4shows similar mean HNR values of /i/ and [®Ẁ], indicating that [®Ẁ] involves more periodic energy as compared with [®] and [" `].…”

“…relatively simple, Hefei Mandarin has a rich vowel inventory and various types of rimes, including three contrastive high back vowels /µ o F/, non-nasalized vs. nasalized vowels as syllable rimes such as /i/ vs. /Î/, and three syllabic consonants [®` ®Ẁ " ] (Li 1936;Meng 1962Meng , 1997Li 1994Li , 1997Wang 1996;Kong 2003Kong , 2004Kong , 2006Kong & Zhang 2006;Kong, Wu & Li 2019).…”