Mandarin Neutral Tone—does It Change Target
Issue:
Volume 2, Issue 1, January 2014
Pages:
5-18
Received:
2 December 2013
Published:
20 January 2014
Abstract: It is known that in Mandarin each of the five lexical tones can be assigned with an articulatorily functional target: [high] for tone 1, [rise] for tone 2, [low] for tone 3, [fall] for tone 4 and [mid] for tone 5 (the first four tones are known as full tones while tone 5 is called neutral tone). Given that the targets of full tones can change (e.g., from tone 3 to tone 2) in certain speech conditions (e.g. tone sandhi), it is natural to ask whether the same is true for Mandarin neutral tone. This is still an unresolved question, the solution of which can contribute to our understanding of articulatory “strength” as an index of speech communication which is less well explored than other areas of speech production. Motivated by the above concerns, this study uses speech production experiment to test whether the target of Mandarin neutral tone has similar target values (in terms of target slope, height, duration and strength) to those of other tones in Mandarin under three speech conditions: emotion (anger, happiness, disgust and neural emotion), sentence position of the neutral tone (sentence medial and final) and tones preceding the neutral tone (all full tones in Mandarin). The results reveal that the neutral tone is highly likely to change its target in certain combinations of the aforementioned three speech conditions. This study not only further supports previous studies on the impact of emotion, sentence position and tonal contexts on the target behavior of tones, but also highlights the possibility of Mandarin neutral tone changing from weak to strong in articulation for the purpose of effective communication, providing further evidence for “strength” as a communication index.
Abstract: It is known that in Mandarin each of the five lexical tones can be assigned with an articulatorily functional target: [high] for tone 1, [rise] for tone 2, [low] for tone 3, [fall] for tone 4 and [mid] for tone 5 (the first four tones are known as full tones while tone 5 is called neutral tone). Given that the targets of full tones can change (e.g....
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The Arabic Origins of "Question and Modal Words" in English and European Languages: A Lexical Root Theory Approach
Issue:
Volume 2, Issue 1, January 2014
Pages:
19-30
Received:
27 December 2013
Published:
20 February 2014
Abstract: This paper examines the Arabic origins of question and modal words in English, German, French, Latin, Greek, Russian, and Sanskrit from a lexical root theory perspective. The data consists of 21 terms like who, what, why, when, where, which, how; can/could, will/would, shall/should, may/might. All such words, the results exhibit, have true Arabic cognates, with the same or similar forms and meanings. Their different forms, however, are all found to be due to natural and plausible causes and different courses of linguistic change. Moreover, all the wh-question words in the so-called Indo-European languages developed from one form- viz., hu- in Germanic languages (English how, German wie, Gothic hvaiwa), qu- in Romance (Latin, French, Italian quis/que), Slavic (Russian kto), Sanskrit (kah), and Greek ti (tos), to which gender, number, and case endings were added, leading to different forms and different meanings like who, what, why, how, when, where in English. All such forms descended eventually from Arabic kaifa/kai 'how' via different routes of sound change, turning /k/ into /q/ in Latin and French, /h/ in English, and /t/ in Greek while /f/ became /w (u)/ in all. That is, Arabic kaifa (kai) → (i) kwa in Latinate → (ii) haifa, haiwa/wa in Germanic → iii) ta/sa in Greek/Irish or something similar. Also the auxiliary or modal words had true Arabic cognates. Consequently, the results indicate, contrary to Comparative Method claims, that Arabic, English, and all (Indo-)European languages belong to the same language, let alone the same family. They, therefore, prove the adequacy of the lexical root theory according to which Arabic, English, German, French, Latin, and Greek are dialects of the same language with Arabic being their origin all because of its phonetic complexity and huge lexical variety and multiplicity (10 v. 1).
Abstract: This paper examines the Arabic origins of question and modal words in English, German, French, Latin, Greek, Russian, and Sanskrit from a lexical root theory perspective. The data consists of 21 terms like who, what, why, when, where, which, how; can/could, will/would, shall/should, may/might. All such words, the results exhibit, have true Arabic c...
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