An Experimental Study of Tone and Tone Sandhi in Baoding Dialect

Abstract

This paper analyzes the tone and tone sandhi of Baoding dialect by means of experimental phonetics. So far, only Li
Zihe has conducted typological research on the tone sandhi of Baoding dialect in 2008. By using statistical methods, his paper
summarizes the common characteristics of tone types and tone sandhi in northern dialects, and then investigates the two-character
tone sandhi in Baoding dialect from the perspective of typology. This paper uses Praat to analyze the tone and tone sandhi of
Baoding dialect and tries to give an objective description. In this paper, we obtain the data from the pronunciation of the native
speakers of Baoding dialect. The data were collected from the native speakers of Baoding dialect by recording their pronunciation
of the citation syllables and disyllabic sequence. The collected data were given a careful and detailed acoustic analysis by Praat.
This study is the first attempt to analyze the tone and tone sandhi in Baoding dialect using the Praat. Comparing the present study
with the previous study of Mandarin in terms of citation tones, it is found that T2 (43) is different in both pitch values and tonal
shape; T1 and T4 are different in pitch values but not tonal shapes; T3 is the same in both pitch values and tonal shape. In terms of
tone sandhi, the third tone T3 changed significantly in disyllabic sequence.