THE RHYTHM OF MANDARIN CHINESE

汉语普通话的节奏

曹剑芬(CAO Jianfen)

《Journal of Chinese Linguistics Monograph Series》 17期 (2001/12) Pp. 53-80

摘要

This study is concerned with the rhythm of Mandarin Chinese. As the basis of the study, a set of speech materials was selected from TV news and broadcasting. Pitch and duration measurements were made through their spectrograms, and an informal perception test on rhythm unit division was conducted as well. This paper reports some preliminary results obtained here. The description concentrates on rhythmic structure, including the division of rhythmic chunks, the hierarchical organization, the coherency features within rhythmic units and the boundary markers between these units. In addition, some related issues are also discussed in general.

並列摘要

本文研究汉语普通话的节奏问题。研究的主要基础是对电视新闻联播和电台广播话语的实验分析，包括主观听辨试验和客观的音高和时长测量。根据初步的实验结果，重点介绍和讨论以下几方面的内容：一、节奏组块的划分；二、节奏的层次结构；三、节奏单元内部的内聚特征；四、节奏单元之间的分界标志；五、讨论5.1节奏同话语信息时域分布的关系；5.2节奏结构同句法结构的关系；5.3节奏组块的分与合的关系；六、小结6.1汉语普通话的节奏包含韵律词、韵律短语和语调短语三个基本层次；韵律词通常包含2-3个音节，韵律短语的跨度多数为7±2个音节。6.2节奏单元的内聚特征和分界标志，主要体现为语音单元音高的规律性起伏变化和时长的规律性伸縮停延；6.3韵律节奏的结构是以句法结构为基础的，但不等于句法结构，因而不能期望完全通过句法结构推导节奏的层次结构。6.4语音的节奏看来并不是建立在某种语音成分或语音单元如重音或音节的等间隔出现的基础上，而是建立在语音信息在时间域的规律性分布的基础上，具体表现为一定的韵律现象在一定位置上的规律性出现。这种规律性的出现模式客观上体现了口头话语的层次结构。