Articulation of the nasal vowels in Shanghai Chinese

Abstract

<p>This paper presents an articulatory and acoustic study of the nasal vowels [ãŋ ɒ̃ŋ] in Shanghainese. Synchronous ultrasound, audio, nasalance, and EGG recordings from 4 young native speakers were analyzed. Data show that the two nasal vowels in Shanghainese are merged and generally produced with a retracted and lower tongue position compared with the oral vowel [a]. The nasal vowels are significantly nasalized from about half of the duration. Unlike previous studies of Chaoshan Chinese, French, and Yi, a decrease in contact quotient during nasal vowels was not observed. Rather, one speaker is observed to increase the contact quotient (less breathy) for nasal vowels carrying modal rising tone [˧˦]. Given the acoustic similarities of nasality and breathiness, this adjustment may serve to avoid misperception with the breathy rising tone [˩˩˧]. This study betters our understanding of the nasal vowel articulation in Shanghainese and provides additional data required for cross-linguistic comparisons.</p>