A preliminary analysis on children’s phonation contrast in Kunshan Wu Chinese tones

Abstract

Previous studies have established that phonation contrasts can be, apart from pitch, an important dimension of tonal contrasts in some languages, and modern Wu Chinese is a good example in which the lower register tones are produced with breathier phonation than the upper register tones. Nevertheless, researchers have shown that such phonation contrast is declining among young speakers in Shanghai and Suzhou Wu. This pilot study is thus motivated to investigate children’s production in Kunshan Wu, a neighboring yet rather understudied dialect with more tones, in order to see if a similar trend is ongoing. Two male and two female school-age children (8;4 to 10;4) were recorded reading isolated monosyllabic words with different lexical tones, and simultaneous acoustic and electroglottographic (EGG) data were collected. Results of EGG and acoustic parameters demonstrate that at least near the onset of the vowel, glottal constriction is smaller and glottal closure is less abrupt in the lower register tones than in the upper register tones, suggesting that the lower register tones are generally produced with breathier phonation. Therefore, school-age child speakers of Kunshan Wu are still able to produce the phonation contrast between the tone registers.