| Suqian City is located in the northern part of Jiangsu Province,at the junction of Jiangsu,Shandong,and Anhui provinces.Dialectically,Suqian is located in the transitional zone between Central Plains Mandarin and Jianghuai Mandarin,with the nature of a transitional dialect.Since the publication of "Shuyang Dialect Phonology " in 1928,the study of Suqian dialect has a history of nearly a hundred years.The origin and changes of Suqian dialect research at various stages are linked to the course of Chinese dialect research,which can be described as a microcosm of Chinese dialect research.The rich research results have added a valuable wealth to the study of Chinese dialects,which cannot be separated from the painstaking field research conducted by many scholars.However,compared with the results of other regions in Jiangsu,they are somewhat backward and have greater exploration space.At present,research on the intonation of Suqian dialect is still lacking,and research using experimental phonetics methods is rarely reported.This article mainly uses Praat and RStudio software to conduct acoustic experimental analysis of interrogative sentences in Suqian dialect,with a view to exploring the realization of the intonation of interrogative sentences in Suqian dialect.This article analyzes the characteristics of interrogative intonation in Suqian dialect based on syllables,mainly investigating the acoustic characteristics of interrogative sentences such as pitch curves,scales,and registers.The analysis and description methods of interrogative intonation mainly refer to Zhao Yuanren’s intonation theory and Lin Maocan’s experimental methods.For echoic questions without lexical and grammatical markers and repetitive questions with fixed overlapping positions,a control was set with tone as the variable condition in each group,and a control was set with question focus at different positions as the variable condition in specific questions and selective questions,and a comparative analysis was conducted.The full text is divided into seven chapters: The first chapter is an introduction,the second chapter introduces the experimental scheme,and the third to seventh chapters analyze the acoustic characteristics of the intonation of four interrogative sentences: single character tone,two character tone,and two character tone.This article includes the following conclusions:(1)The echoic tone of Suqian dialect is not only borne by the ending syllable,but the elevation of the fundamental frequency curve is evident from the beginning of the sentence.The initial syllable register of echoic question sentences is also slightly higher than that of declarative sentences as a whole.Although most declarative sentences have a larger register than interrogative sentences at the verb of the verb-object phrase at the end of the sentence,this is due to a significant decrease in the fundamental frequency of the declarative sentence at that syllable.The register of echo questions at the object is still relatively high.(2)The realization of the specific interrogative function in Suqian dialect does not mainly rely on the interrogative intonation at the end of a sentence.The elevation of the pitch curve and scale of interrogative words is the main means to achieve the specific interrogative function.(3)In Suqian dialect,the position of the choice structure in the choice question is different,and its pitch manifestations are also different.When placed at the beginning and middle of a sentence,the pitch curve distribution of the choice structure is higher,and the distribution of prosodic words at the end of the sentence is usually the lowest;The distribution of front focus A within the question focus is generally slightly higher than that of rear focus B.When the selection structure is placed at the end of a sentence,the distribution of all parts of the sentence is relatively balanced,the pitch distribution of the question focus is not prominent,and the distribution of prosodic words at the end of the sentence is not reduced.When the selection structure is two verb object phrases,the difference in pitch curve distribution at the selection focus(verb/object)is more prominent.(4)The question focus of repeated questions in Suqian dialect is on the overlapping structure "AA",in which the pitch curve of the first syllable has a significant upward trend,while the latter syllable has a downward trend.The pitch curve of the front and rear syllables has a significant differentiation.In the pitch curve distribution,83% of the cases were that the posterior syllable was not lower than the anterior syllable.Overall,there is no significant increase in the distribution of ending syllables in non echoic questions.From the perspective of scale and register analysis,the upper pitch limit usually rises at the overlapping structure "AA".The lower limit of pitch decreases significantly at the first syllable of the overlapping structure,resulting in an increase in the range of the syllable.This indicates that the realization of the interrogative function in Suqian dialect mainly relies on the pitch change and register expansion of the interrogative form overlapping structure,rather than on the final interrogative intonation.(5)Regardless of the tone type of the first syllable of the interrogative sentence in Suqian dialect,the trend of the pitch curve shows a significant upward trend.This indicates that the first syllable of interrogative sentences in Suqian dialect is a boundary tone,which plays a role in carrying interrogative information.Perhaps before the speaker utters the first syllable,the brain has completed rapid encoding of the question information. |
