現代漢語音節縮讀

Contracted Syllables in Mandarin: Evidence from Spontaneous Conversations

自然語流包含不同程度的語音縮讀。本文運用現代漢語連續語音語料庫檢視與分析自然語音中的縮讀現象。量化分析與聲學測量的結果發現語音縮讀原應是一個連續過程，並且所指引到的最終縮讀形式是可預期的。因為語料顯示出同一組音節會有多種縮讀結果，但都是演化至某一特定音節。另外，構詞分布也對縮讀音節位置有影響。如同後綴則是較常出現在縮讀的後面位置。零聲母音節較常與前置音節縮讀；帶送氣聲母音節則較不可能出現在後置音節。聲學測量結果顯示在縮讀時輔音不至於影響元音的連併，反而是來自各個音節的元音之間的差異性（諸如前後元音對比）影響較大。有時前置縮讀音節的聲母也發現有顎化等變化。利用自然語流材料，本文不僅實證有關縮讀的理論，更對自然語流的語音變化研究提出新的方法。

Fast speech contains pronunciation reductions to different extents. This paper examines perceptually identified syllable contractions with a corpus of spontaneous Mandarin data. By means of quantitative analyses and acoustical measurements, we find that syllable contraction is a continuous process with a predictable target syllable. Our statistic analyses show that contraction forms of a given combination of syllables are more than one, but they are similar in the way that the extremely shortened form is targeting the same syllable. We also find that morphological distribution influences syllable positions in a contraction. Suffixes are more frequently contracted with a preceding syllable than a following syllable. Syllables with a zero initial are more likely to be contracted with their previous syllable and syllables with a voiceless aspirated initial consonant are the least likely syllables to be found contracted with their preceding syllables. Acoustic analyses show that consonantal effects on vowels are rarely found in the data, whereas the process of nuclei merging tends to be more essential. The back-front contrast seems to be a factor influencing the way vowels of different syllables are merged together. Using natural discourse data, we are able to validate claims made on the issue of syllable contraction and we also point to several new directions of study related to segmental changes in the process of contraction.