Prosodic Phonology Of The Fuzhou Dialect

Prosodic Phonology of the Fuzhou Dialect: Domains and Rule Application is the first attempt to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the Fuzhou phonological system from the perspective of prosodic phonology. It addresses the following issues: What prosodic constituents exist in the Fuzhou dialect and what kinds of roles they play in the Fuzhou phonological system; how to define the domain formation of these prosodic constituents in the Fuzhou dialect; what kinds of Fuzhou phonological phenomena make crucial reference to these prosodic constituents as the domain of application; and what implications does the study of the Fuzhou phonological system have for the prosodic phonology theory. This book is a valuable text for students and scholars in the field of Chinese dialectology, Min dialects, prosodic phonology, and phonology-morphosyntax interface.

This dissertation examines the phonological system of the Fuzhou dialect within the framework of prosodic phonology. It is divided into three parts. Chapter I and Chapter II belong to the first part. Chapter I presents a short introduction to the Fuzhou dialect and a brief review of some previous studies on this dialect. Chapter II introduces the theory of prosodic phonology, and provides the descriptive background on the phonological system of the Fuzhou dialect. The second part is composed of six chapters. From Chapter III to Chapter VIII, I discuss one by one, in detail, different prosodic constituents in terms of their definition and role(s) in the Fuzhou dialect, including the syllable, the foot, the prosodic word, the clitic group, the phonological phrase, and the intonational phrase. The third part (Chapter IX) summarizes the discoveries and conclusions drawn in this dissertation. There are three major issues regarding prosodic constituents discussed in this dissertation: (a) whether these constituents exist and play a role in the phonological system of the Fuzhou dialect; (b) how to define the domain formation of these constituents in the Fuzhou dialect; and (c) what kinds of Fuzhou phonological phenomena make crucial reference to these constituents as the domain of application. The second part of this dissertation is a detailed investigation of these issues. First of all, on the basis of the discussion of Fuzhou phonological rules, including phonological tone sandhi (TS), morphological tone sandhi (MTS), final alternation (FA), final change (FC), and initial consonant lenition (CL), this dissertation provides empirical evidence for the existence of most universal prosodic constituents in the Fuzhou dialect. Second, through the analyses of these prosodic constituents, this dissertation proves that the domains of different constituents in this dialect are defined by making use of different types of phonological and non-phonological information. Third, this dissertation demonstrates that different Fuzhou phonological phenomena refer to different prosodic constituents as the domain of application—a particular phenomenon may be triggered within one domain while blocked within another, and one phonological phenomenon that applies within more than one domain may exhibit different degrees of application. Moreover, I propose a restriction on rule application for the Fuzhou dialect, which suggests that when a domain is contained in another domain, a given phenomenon specific to the external domain may not freely be triggered within the embedded domain. With its focus on the prosodic phonology of the Fuzhou dialect, this dissertation not only explores the phonological system of this dialect, but also probes the interactions between phonology and other components of the grammar of this dialect. Thus many aspects of this dialect, such as its phonology, morphology, syntax, and even semantics, are all discussed in this dissertation. As the first attempt to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the Fuzhou phonological system from the perspective of prosodic phonology, I hope that this dissertation will provide a thorough description and analysis of the phonological system of the Fuzhou dialect, and will further our understanding of prosodic phonology in general.

Prosody is one of the core components of language and speech, indicating information about syntax, turn-taking in conversation, types of utterances, such as questions or statements, as well as speakers' attitudes and feelings. This edited volume takes studies in prosody on Asian languages as well as examples from other languages. It brings together the most recent research in the field and also charts the influence on such diverse fields as multimedia communication and SLA. Intended for a wide audience of linguists that includes neighbouring disciplines such as computational sciences, psycholinguists, and specialists in language acquisition, Prosodic Studies is also ideal for scholars and researchers working in intonation who want a complement of information on specifics.

Prosody is one of the core components of language and speech, indicating information about syntax, turn-taking in conversation, types of utterances, such as questions or statements, as well as speakers' attitudes and feelings. This edited volume takes studies in prosody on Asian languages as well as examples from other languages. It brings together the most recent research in the field and also charts the influence on such diverse fields as multimedia communication and SLA. Intended for a wide audience of linguists that includes neighbouring disciplines such as computational sciences, psycholinguists, and specialists in language acquisition, Prosodic Studies is also ideal for scholars and researchers working in intonation who want a complement of information on specifics.

This book centers on theoretical issues of phonology-syntax interface based on tone sandhi in Chinese dialects. It uses patterns in tone sandhi to study how speech should be divided into domains of various sizes or levels. Tone sandhi refers to tonal changes that occur to a sequence of adjacent syllables or words. The size of this sequence (or the domain) is determined by various factors, in particular the syntactic structure of the words and the original tones of the words. Chinese dialects offer a rich body of data on tone sandhi, and hence great evidence for examining the phonology-syntax interface, and for examining the resulting levels of domains (the prosodic hierarchy). Syntax-Phonology Interface: Argumentation from Tone Sandhi in Chinese Dialects is an extremely valuable text for graduate students and scholars in the fields of linguistics and Chinese.

Matthew Chen's study, first published in 2000, offers a most comprehensive analysis of the rich and complex patterns of tone used in Chinese languages. Chinese has a wide repertoire of tones which undergo often surprising changes when they are connected in speech flow. The term tone sandhi refers to this tonal alternation. Chen examines tone sandhi phenomena in detail across a variety of Chinese dialects. He explores a range of important theoretical issues such as the nature of tonal representation, the relation of tone to accent, the prosodic domain of sandhi rules, and the interface between syntax and phonology. His book is the culmination of a ten-year research project and offers a wealth of empirical data not previously accessible to linguists. Extensive references and a bibliography on tone sandhi complete this invaluable resource which will be welcomed as a standard reference on Chinese tone.

Locality in Grammar: From Narrow Syntax to Interfaces investigates the operation of locality conditions in syntax and semantics from a cross-linguistic perspective. It is claimed that there are two different types of locality conditions. One is the Generalized Minimality Condition (GMC), and the other is the Phase Impenetrability Condition (PIC). This book demonstrates that these locality conditions play different roles in different computational components of human language, and, therefore, cannot be unified as one constraint as proposed in the literature. The main idea of the book is that the two different locality conditions are sensitive to the difference between syntactic derivation and semantic interpretation and that of overt and covert syntactic derivations. Further investigation shows a more fine-grained distinction must be made between syntactic computations. It is true that GMC does not constrain overt syntactic derivations and PIC does not play a role in semantic interpretations; however, they both regulate covert syntactic computations. This book will inform postgraduate students and scholars in the field of linguistics.