台灣閩南語自然語料中言談單位交界之音長訊號

Durational Cues at Discourse Boundaries in Taiwan Southern Min Spontaneous Speech

王聖富(Sheng-Fu Wang)

指導教授 ： 馮怡蓁

國立臺灣大學/文學院/語言學研究所/碩士(2013年)

https://doi.org/10.6342/NTU.2013.00422

摘要

本文旨在研究台灣閩南語自發語料中言談單位交界處的音長訊號。過去的研究指出，音節和停頓的長度都可以反映語流當中句法或言談單位的架構。其中Fon(2002)和Fon et al. (2011)的研究發現了在華語的自然語料中，言談單位(discourse unit)交界處之前的倒數第二個音節會增長，而此現象並未出現在英語和日語。此外，在台灣華語當中，倒數第一個音節的長度和言談單位交界的強度呈現負相關，而此現象並未出現在中國大陸的華語。換而言之，過去的研究發現了語言
之間和方言之間的音長訊號使用差異。由於台灣閩南語是一個在台灣的聲調語言(tone language)，研究台灣閩南語的音長訊號有助於了解「倒數第二音節延長」是否為聲調語言的特色，以及「倒數第一音節長度和言談交界強度的負相關」是否為台灣語言的特徵之一。本研究使用八小時的台灣閩南語自發語料，內含十六位受訪者的音檔，由年齡和性別平均分為四組。主要測量的兩個音長訊號為音節長度和停頓長度。言談單位的標記，採用Fon et al. (2011)的標準切分言談
單位以及標示出單位之間的疆界大小。所研究的言談單位交界依照三個標準分為六組：一、單位交界處是否有停頓(pause)。二、單位交界處是否同時為語調單位(intonational unit)的交界處。三、單位交界處之前的音節是否為語尾助詞。研究結果發現穩定的倒數第二音節延長現象。此外，當言談單位的結尾帶有語尾助詞，該單位的最末的三個音節都有顯著延長。此結果再次顯示聲調語言當中的確有倒數第二音節延長現象，但語尾助詞對此延長現象的增強效果顯示字詞的疆界
也可能影響語尾延長音節數的多寡。此外，如同台灣華語，台灣閩南語的倒數第一音節長度也和言談交界強度呈現負相關，而且此現象也同樣出現在停頓之前。這兩個語言在此現象的相似性表示台灣華語可能從台灣閩南語承繼此現象。

關鍵字

台灣閩南語 ； 台語 ； 段落訊號 ； 韻律疆界 ； 自然語料

並列摘要

This study examined durational cues at discourse boundaries in spontaneous speech in Taiwan Southern Min. Past studies have shown that cues such as syllable duration and pause duration can encode syntactic and discourse structures in speech by signalling the presence and strength of boundaries between units. In particular, this study set out to examine whether Taiwan Southern Min speakers used penultimate lengthening as a boundary cue and pre-boundary syllable duration as a negative hierarchy cue. Studies (Fon et al., 2011; Fon, 2002) have shown two language- and dialect-specific cues: Penultimate lengthening was used by Mandarin speakers but not English nor Japanese speakers. Also, Mandarin speakers in Taiwan used the pre-boundary syllable duration to signal the strength of the discourse boundary in an inverse manner, that is, stronger boundaries were marked with shorter syllable duration. This kind of negative correlation between syllable duration and boundary strength is not found in the Mandarin spoken in China. Taiwan Southern Min, a tone language spoken in Taiwan, is an ideal target for further investigation on these cross-linguistic and cross-dialectal differences because it provides a chance to test whether penultimate lengthening exists in tone languages in general or whether the“negative hierarchy effect” in Taiwan Mandarin is shared with Taiwan Southern Min. The present study used an eight-hour spontaneous monologue corpus contributed by sixteen speakers evenly split by gender and age. The segmentation of discourse units and the annotation of boundary strength between units were done following the method of Fon et al. (2011). Two durational cues were examined: syllable duration and post-syllable pause duration. Data were divided into six subsets according to three criteria: First, whether the discourse boundary coincided with an intonational phrase boundary. Second, whether there was a boundary pause or not. Third, whether the boundary was marked with a final particle. Results showed consistent penultimate lengthening. Also, the presence of a final particle extended the domain of pre-boundary lengthening to a tri-syllabic one. These findings suggested that tone languages might in general favor a larger domain of pre-boundary lengthening, although the effect of final particle suggest that word boundaries might also be a factor. As for hierarchy cues, the “Negative hierarchy effect” was observed, showing a similarity between Taiwan Mandarin and Taiwan Southern Min, raising a possibility that the former obtained this feature from the latter.

並列關鍵字

Taiwan Southern Min ； Taiwanese ； boundary cue ； prosodic break ； spontaneous speech

參考文獻

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