How to pronounce a low tone: A lesson from Kaifeng Mandarin

Abstract

A multi-speaker acoustic study on citation tones in Kaifeng Mandarin, referred to as LH, HL, H and L, shows that L is realized as three different subtypes by different speakers, i.e. dipping, falling and falling with lengthening, while generally being longer than the other three tones and frequently spoken with creaky voice in part of the vowel. This inter-speaker variation is reflected in the different transcriptions of Kaifeng L that have been given in the literature. We argue that a L-tone is intrinsically less salient than a H-tone, due to a lack of phonetic space in the low pitch range as well as to a potential ambiguity between contextual low pitch around f0 peaks and low pitch due to L-tones, and thus more likely to be enhanced.