The influence of discourse hierarchy on the acoustic manifestation of focus in Mandarin Chinese

Phonetic experiments were carried out to investigate whether the acoustic features of discourse focus were subjected to the influence of discourse hierarchy. Six speakers were instructed to read aloud 32 groups of experimental material. The duration, pitch range, f0 maximum, and f0 minimum of foci in different discourse hierarchy were extracted for statistical analysis. The results revealed that foci embedded higher in the discourse hierarchy had relatively longer duration and more expanded pitch range; moreover, with the variation of tone combination, foci of different discourse hierarchy differed remarkably in their manifestation of f0 maximum and f0 minimum features. Specifically speaking, for non-low tone combinations, foci in higher discourse hierarchy were notably characterized by higher f0 maximum, while for low-tone combinations, loci in higher discourse hierarchy were signaled by lower f0 minimum.