话题转换方式和句子长度对边界声学参数的影响

该文研究了不同话题转换方式和句子长度对边界处停顿、边界前延长量及音高重置的影响。语料是由两个句子构成的小语篇,通过改变第二个句子控制两种句子长度(短和长)和三种话题转换方式(延续、精述和转折)。20位发音人的语音分析结果显示: (1) 话题转换方式和句子长度对停顿及音高重置都有调节作用,但对边界前词的时长延长量没有显著影响。另外,两因素间没有交互作用。主要表现为: 边界后句子越长,句间停顿越长,且边界处的音高重置越大。从话题延续、话题精述到话题转折,停顿时长呈增长趋势,且音高重置度增大; (2) 停顿时长与边界前延长量存在较弱的负相关,与音高重置则存在较弱的正相关; (3) 相较于男性发音人,女性发音人对话题转换方式更为敏感,且更倾向于用停顿和音高两种声学线索标记话题转换方式。句长效应则在男女发音人中都稳定存在。以上结果表明,句长对边界处声学参数的影响基于底层发音机制,而话题转换方式的影响则是语言中信息传递的需要。

Effects of Topic Transition and Sentence Length on Acoustic Cues in Mandarin Chinese

This paper investigats the effects of topic transition type and sentence length on pause, final lengthening and pitch reset at prosodic phrase boundaries between two clauses. The discourses contained two sentences each. The second sentence is manipulated to control length (long vs short) and topic transition type(continuation, elaboration or shift).The results from twenty native speakers show that: 1) Both topic transition and sentence length have significant effects on pause duration and pitch reset, but not on pre-boundary lengthening, with no interaction between them. More specifically, longer pause and larger pitch reset occurre when the second sentence is long. Pause duration and pitch reset are increased to a larger degree in the condition of topic shift than topic elaboration and continuation. 2) A weak negative correlation is found between pause duration and pre-boundary lengthening. And, there is a weak positive correlation between pause duration and pitch reset. (3) Compared with male speakers, female speakers use both pitch and duration variation to mark topic transition type in a more systematic way. The above results suggest that the effect of sentence length on acoustic cues at intonational phrase boundaries is probably articulatory, whereas that of topic transition type is communicative.