Lecture | CHiLL series
A dynamic interaction between morphosyntactic structure and constituent size on prosodic domain formation and marking – evidence from Shaoxing Wu Chinese
- Date
- Wednesday 11 December 2024
- Time
- Series
- Chinese Linguistics in Leiden (ChiLL)
- Location
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 2.17
Abstract
In this talk, I will present experimental data from Shaoxing Wu Chinese, which shows complex tonal variation patterns conditioned by both morphosyntactic structure and constituent size. Specifically, disyllabic phrases with Verb-Object (VO, e.g., 浇花 ‘to water flower’) and Subject-Predicate (SP, e.g., 山高 ‘mountain (is) high’) structures differ in their tonal realizations of the initial syllables; yet, the VO-SP distinction disappears as the size of the initial constituent increases. Such findings can provide novel evidence on tonal events marking prosodic domains, and shed further light on the mechanism of tone sandhi domain formation in Chinese dialects.