Contextual tonal variations in Mandarin

The present study examines acoustic variations of tones in Mandarin under the influence of dif ferent tonal contexts . In particular , variations in the four Mandarin tones due to anticipatory and carry-over ef fects are analyzed by examining the time course of f 0 contours of bi-tonal sequences . Using balanced nonsense sequences produced in dif ferent carriers with balanced tonal structures , this study establishes a baseline for local contextual tonal variation in Mandarin . It is found that anticipatory and carry-over tonal influences dif fer both in magnitude and in nature . Carry-over ef fects are mostly assimilatory : the starting f 0 of a tone is assimilated to the of fset value of a previous tone . Anticipatory ef fects , on the other hand , are mostly dissimilatory : a low onset value of a tone raises the maximum f 0 value of a preceding tone . While the magnitude of the carry-over ef fect is large , anticipatory ef fects are relatively small . ÷ 1997 Academic Press Limited