Declination in Cantonese: Variabilities vs. invariabilities

Ivan Yuen

Declination has been reported in both tone and non-tone languages. The current study aims at distinguishing different methods in modeling the downtrend - fitting a top reference line or a bottom reference line.

In this study, a tone language Cantonese was used for investigation, because a tone language will have more F0 peaks and valleys as data points for measurement than in any European languages. Besides, each F0 data points are determined on the basis of each phonological tone. In other words, F0 peaks and valleys as data points share the same lexical status.

An experiment was conducted on 4 subjects to determine whether declination is more accurately described as a downward sequence of register shift, a narrowing of pitch range, a declining top reference line or a declining bottom line. To do so, the effect of position in sentence was tested on 3 tones - Low-fall, Mid-high and Mid-low.

Preliminary results from 1 subject show a significant effect of position in sentence on F0 peak and valley for each test tone. A register shift is noted, but it seemed to co-occur occasionally with pitch range variations. Despite variability in realization, declination is observed.