Tonal coarticulation in Malaysian Hokkien: A typological anomaly?

Abstract

Contextual tonal variations in Malaysian Hokkien (Southern Min) display three features of unusual typological interest. First, our acoustic study shows that carryover and anticipatory tonal influences do not substantially differ in the magnitude, suggesting that tonal coarticulation may not be universally asymmetric, or, the carryover bias is not as robust as previously assumed. Second, carryover coarticulation is not predominantly assimilatory and anticipatory coarticulation is not dissimilatory in nature. In particular, it is attested for the first time that Progressive Dissimilation occurs in ditonal contexts. Third, another important finding is that near tone mergers are subject to distinct coarticulatory effects and exert different contextual influences on adjacent tones, suggesting that contrast preservation may be, to some extent, evoked even in phonetic realization. In conclusion, not only does this study enrich the typology of tonal coarticulation patterns, but it also argues for a new perspective on tonal coarticulation, whereby, aside from functionally motivated factors such as articulatory constraints and anti-merger, the "anomalous" patterns in Malaysian Hokkien may well be due to Final Prominence in Southern Min tone sandhi systems, i.e. priority for fully faithful rendition of the underlying tones in sandhi-final position. © Walter de Gruyter.