MOTIVATING THE CHANGE OF STOP CODAS IN CHAOSHAN: A PERCEPTUAL STUDY

從語言感知探究潮汕入聲韻尾的變遷

朱曼妮(Man-ni Chu)

指導教授 ： 曹逢甫 ； 王旭

國立清華大學/人文社會學院/語言學研究所/博士(2009年)

https://doi.org/10.6843/NTHU.2009.00742

摘要

The absence of the alveolar stop in coda position in ChaoShan dialect, where the phenomenon serves as a counter example to the generalization (p > t > k) proposed by Chen (1973a) is an interesting case that calls for explanation. The claim proposed by Ohala (1989, 1993) that the source of the sound change lies on the misperception of the listeners, which can be replicated in the laboratory looks promising in providing a feasible account of the sound change. Thus, the goal of the study is to explore the correlations between the misperception and the loss of the alveolar stop of ChaoShan. Two perceptual experiments, gating and noise-masking, were conducted, while the stimuli were manipulated into fragments or with different degrees of noises. The participants of the two experiments were from different language groups. The results indicated that the nature of the vowel, the nature of the consonant and the language background of those subjects affect the coda identification. First of all, /t/ can be mis-identified mostly and across language groups, the coda /t/ is disfavored by the vowel /a/, while it is preferred to in the company of the coda /k/. That is the loss of the coda /t/ may possibly initiate from the rhyme of /at/ because of listeners’ misperceiving it as /ak/. After a span of time of lexical diffusion, all the alveolar stops turn out to be velar ones under all conditions. The historical documents confirm the above argument as well. The results of two experiments reflect the possibility of misperception as a possible cause of sound change and how in this particular case the misperception of /at/ as /ak/ can adequately explain the loss of the terminal alveolar stop in ChaoShan. Our study is in accord with Ohala’s proposal about the role of the listeners in a sound change and has taken a step in the direction of explaining the derivation of ChaoShan codas.

關鍵字

潮汕方言 ； 入聲尾音 ； 聽力實驗

並列摘要

潮汕方言在入聲尾音 /t/ 是空缺的，這樣的語言現象與Chen (1973a)所提出的入聲尾音演變方向：(p > t > k) 是不符的，並且Ohala(1989, 1993) 提出了聽者的誤聽佔著語言變化的關鍵角色，他並且認為語音的變化能夠在實驗室裡重現。本研究的主要目標就是在探索聽者誤聽與潮汕丟失入聲尾音/t/的可能關係。
兩個聽力實驗為本研究的主體，一為片段實驗，另一為噪音實驗。前者為聲音切割成片段，而後者則是將聲音加上噪音，兩者的目標都是在探索受測者在不能夠清楚聽到聲音的情形，所可能發生的錯誤。受測者均有不同的語言背景。結果顯示：入聲尾音的指認受母音、尾音跟受測者的語言背景影響。/t/是容易聽混淆的入聲尾音，而且/t/在/a/的後面，是不受青睞的，而/k/則是/a/後面受青睞的入聲韻尾，所以潮汕方言丟失入聲韻尾/t/是可能從/at/韻腳開始，因為/at/容易被聽錯成/ak/。經過一段時間的字彙擴散，所有的/t/韻尾的字，都變成了/k/韻尾。歷史上的語料支持以上的推論。
本研究藉由兩個聽力實驗的結果，成功地解釋了潮汕方言入聲韻尾/t/丟失的原因，我們的研究也證實了Ohala的假說：語音變化責任在於聽者，並且對於潮汕方言入聲韻尾/t/  /k/ 的演變，提供了強而有力的解釋。

並列關鍵字

ChaoShan dialect ； coda identification ； perceptual experiments

參考文獻

Bodman, N. C. 1982. Some recent sound shifts in ChaoZhou and other Southern Min dialects. Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica.53(4): 615-625.

Chen, X. (陳修) 2000. Taiwanhua Dacdian. ‘A dictionary of Taiwan Southern Min.’ YuanLiou Publish.

Ahmed, R. and Agrawal, S. S. 1969. Significant features in the perception of (Hindi) Consonants. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 45, 758-763.

Avery, P. and Rice, K. 1989. Segment structure and coronal underspecification. Phonology, 6(2): 179-200.

Blumstein, S. E. and Stevens, K. N. 1979. Acoustic invariance in speech production: Evidence from measurements of the spectral characteristics of stop consonants. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 66(4): 1001-1017.