Effects of Tonal Coarticulation and Prosodic Positions on Tonal Contours of Low Rising Tones: In the Case of Xiamen Dialect

Few studies have worked on the effects of tonal coarticulation and prosodic positions on the low rising tone in Xiamen Dialect. This study addressed such an issue. To do so, a new method, the Tonal Contour Analysis in Tonal Triangle, was proposed to measure the subtle curvature of the tonal contour. Findings are as follows: (1) The low rising tone in Xiamen Dialect has a tendency towards the falling-rising tone, which is significantly affected by the tonal coarticulation and prosodic positions. (2) The low rising tone presents as a falling-rising tone when preceded by a tone with a high offset, and as a low rising tone when preceded by a tone that ends up low. (3) The curvature of the low rising tone is greatest in the sentence-initial position, and is positively correlated to its own duration.