從聲學觀點比較客語與賽夏語的元音格局

An Acoustic Comparison of the Vowel Patterns between Hakka and Saisiyat

本研究透過聲學比較客語與賽夏語的單元音。客語單元音語料取自鄭明中（Cheng，2012）的聲學分析，賽夏語單元音語料則取自《線上賽夏語詞典》。本研究利用PRAAT測量賽夏語6個單元音第一及第二共振峰頻率值，並將客語與賽夏語中各個單元音共振峰頻率值加總後平均，接著將各個元音共振峰平均值轉換為以聽覺為本的巴克值，並據以繪製元音格局圖以供比較。比較結果如下：（一）賽夏語元音格局比客語元音格局來得緊縮。（二）賽夏語/œ,ǝ/與/æ, a/兩組元音配對中的元音已傾向於合併為/ǝ/與/a/而無法明確區分。對於/œ,æ/而言，這是由有標音轉為無標音的變化。（三）賽夏語/o/元音的發音位置與客語與國語/u/元音相近，引發賽夏族人在唸讀帶/u/的客語詞彙時產生/o, u/相混現象，本研究從語音產製與語音感知角度對這個現象提供解釋。最後，根據聲學分析及與客語（與國語）比較的結果，本研究建議將賽夏語的元音數量修正為4個，即/i,ǝ, a, u/。

This study acoustically analyzed the vowels in Hakka and Saisiyat. The data of Hakka came from Cheng’s (2012) acoustic study of Hakka vowels, while the data of Saisiyat came from the online Saisiyat dictionary. PRAAT was adopted to measure the frequency values of the first and second formants of Saisiyat vowels, and these values were further normalized into the auditorilybased Bark values. The mean Bark values of individual Saisiyat and Hakka vowels were utilized to draw vowel space charts for further mutual comparison. The results of this acoustic study were stated as follows. First, the vowel pattern of Saisiyat was smaller than that of Hakka. Second, /oe,ǝ/ and /æ, a/ in Saisiyat had a tendency to merge into /ǝ/ and /a/ respectively, a change from markedness to unmarkedness for /oe,æ/. Third, the place of articulation of /o/ in Saisiyat is very adjacent to those of /u/ in Hakka and Mandarin. This gives rise to Saisiyats’confusion of /o, u/. For such a phenomenon, this study offered explanations from the perspectives of speech production and speech perception. Finally, according to this acoustic analysis, this study suggested that the number of vowels in Saisiyat should be reduced to 4, that is, /i,ǝ, a, u/, and the descriptions of vowel articulation in Saisiyat should be further revised and modified.