Tones and vowels in Fuzhou revisited

Abstract

In this paper I claim that while the phonological category is responsible for the segmental effects, the exact form of the vowel is an historical accident, contemporarily maximizing the tonal distinctions, but not requiring synchronic derivation.

Full text

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110341263-003
Cathryn Donohue
Tones and vowels in Fuzhou revisited*
1 Introduction
There has been considerable work on understanding phonetic effects of seg-
ments on tone and on the influence of tone on segments (e.g. Maddieson 1977,
1984, 1997; Zee 1984 and others). Such phonetic effects are often consequences
of speech production and as such are relatively imperceptible. However, less
attention has been given to effects of tone and segments that are not automatic
phonetic changes, but rather changes that result from the phonology. In this
paper I present data from the Fuzhou variety of Chinese, perhaps best known
for its tone–vowel alternations. In previous analyses, the alternating vowel forms
have been derived in the synchronic phonology.
In this paper I claim that while the phonological category is responsible
for the segmental effects, the exact form of the vowel is an historical accident,
contemporarily maximizing the tonal distinctions, but not requiring synchronic
derivation.
2 Fuzhou tones
Fuzhou (󱙤󲝆) is a Min Dong (󳉾󰑆) dialect of Chinese spoken by roughly eight
million people in north-eastern Fujian province, China. There are seven citation
tones in Fuzhou that can be described as shown in Tab. 1 (Donohue 2013), which
lists not only the tones and their “values”, but also gives their Middle Chinese
tonal category.
Cathryn Donohue, University of Hong Kong, donohue@hku.hk
* Parts of this paper were developed from work presented at the Berkeley Linguistics Society
Annual Meeting in February 2007 and the Tone-Segment workshop in Amsterdam in June 2007.
I would like to thank the audiences at these conferences as well as Marc van Oostendorp, Wolf-
gang Kehrein, Björn Köhnlein, Paul Boersma, and Richard Wiese for their helpful comments on
the paper. Any remaining errors are entirely mine.
Donohue, Cathryn. 2017. Tones and vowels in Fuzhou revisited. In Wolfgang Kehrein, Björn Köhnlein,
Paul Boersma and Marc van Oostendorp (eds), Segmental Structure and Tone. Linguistische Arbeiten
552. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 99–108.

84 Cathryn Donohue
Tab. 1: The seven citation tones in Fuzhou (Donohue 2013).
Tone Tone 1Tone 2Tone 3Tone 4Tone 5Tone 6Tone 7
Value 44 32 21 13 51 231 5
MC Yin ping Shang Yin Qu Yin Ru Yang ping Yang Qu Yang Ru
category 󳍅  󳍅 󳍅 󳍒 󳍒 󳍒
The “values” consist of digits that refer to relative points on a scale of 1 (low) to
5 (high), and the transition between these points represents the tonal contour
during the time course of the syllable (following Chao (1930)). Furthermore, as
is the tradition in the description of Chinese tones, the underscoring indicates
a syllable with an unreleased plosive in the coda (a “stopped” tone), which is a
glottal stop in Fuzhou. The numbers presented in Tab. 1 are based on an acoustic
quantification of the tones, using data elicited across the vowel paradigm for four
speakers and then normalized (using a Z-score transform) to factor out between-
speaker differences (following Rose 1987). The values represent a broad tran-
scription, abstracting away from minor phonetic details, such as the slight rise
that is present at the end of the high-level tone 1.
3 Fuzhou tone sandhi and the tone–vowel
interaction
Like most varieties of Chinese, Fuzhou has massive tonal neutralization in
sandhi. However, rather than the typical rightwards-spreading phenomenon,
Fuzhou tone sandhi is right dominant, so it is the final syllable in a given
domain which remains unchanged. Unlike other right dominant sandhi systems
(e.g. Mandarin and Southern Min varieties), the changes are opaque: there is
massive neutralization and some chain shifts, as well as new sandhi forms
that do not occur in isolation. One description of these sandhi forms, taken
from Donohue (2013), is given below in Tab. 2. The context for the change is the
second syllable, given in the top row. This tone remains largely unchanged. The
form that changes is the tone on the first syllable, whose underlying (=citation)
form is given in the first column, and whose resulting sandhi form is given in
the table cells underneath the ‘context’, or the tone before which the syllable is
occurring.

Tones and vowels in Fuzhou revisited 85
Tab. 2: Fuzhou tone sandhi forms (Donohue 2013).
Syllable 2
→
Tone 1
[44]
Tone 2
[32]
Tone 3
[21]
Tone 4
[13]
Tone 5
[51]
Tone 6
[231]
Tone 7
[5]
Syllable 1 ↓First syllable sandhi forms below
Tone 1 [44]44 43 42 (53/31)33 42 3
Tone 2 [32]21 34 44 33 33 44 3
Tone 3 [21]44 43 42 (53/31)44 (42)3
Tone 4 [13]21 23 34
42
53
5
21
33
45
42
3
4
Tone 5 [51]44 33 21 33 33 21 3
Tone 6 [231]44 43 42 31 33 32 3
Tone 7 [5]44 33 42 31 33 33 3
Fuzhou is perhaps most famous for its set of vowel alternations between citation
(or isolation) and sandhi (in Fuzhou = non-prepausal) positions (e.g. Chao 1934;
Maddieson 1976; Donohue 2013): the exact form of a vowel will vary depending
on the tone with which it occurs in citation form. The vowel alternations are
given below in Tab. 3, where the vowels are divided into two groups accord-
ing to the tone they occur with. A given row constitutes a single phonological
vowel. This grouping is justified both historically, and by the fact that the vowel
differences are neutralized in sandhi position to the corresponding form from
the Set A group.
Tab. 3: Examples of alternating vowel pairs in Fuzhou.
Set A:
Tones 1 [44], 2 [32], 5 [51], 7 [5]
Set B:
Tones 3 [21], 4 [13], 6 [231]
i ei
ei ai
uou
ou au
yøy
øy œy
a a

86 Cathryn Donohue
In words of two syllables or more, all the prepausal syllables retain their citation
(isolation) tones and vowels. However, in sandhi (non-final) position, not only the
tone changes: all Set B vowels become the correspondent vowel from Set A. The
examples in (1)–(3) (Chao 1934: 41) illustrate how a syllable with an underlying
tone from Set B (Tone 3, 4 or 6) in prepausal or citation position will maintain its
Set B vowel in the (a) examples, but when they are followed by another character
and are thus realized in sandhi position, we see that the vowel changes to the
corresponding variant from Set A (in addition to the tone changing).¹
Input tones: Resulting form:
(1) a. Tone 3 [21]: 󰣸 [khei 21] ‘air’
b. Tone 3 [21] + Tone 4 [23]: 󰣸 [khi 53 ɑʔ 23] ‘air pressure’
(2) a. Tone 4 [13]: 󱟎 [tøy ʔ 13] ‘bamboo’
b. Tone 4 [13] + Tone 4 [13]: 󱟎󱢕 [ty 5 ʒaiʔ 13] ‘bamboo section’
(3) a. Tone 6 [231]: 󱢥[hou 231] ‘protect’
b. Tone 6 [231] + Tone 1 [44]: 󱢥 [hu 44 βiŋ 44] ‘guards’
It is interesting to note that while the vowel quality of a given phonological vowel is
completely predictable by its tone, there are nonetheless lexical contrasts across
the paradigm for certain vowels e.g. the [ei] occurring with a set A tone and the
[ei] occurring with a set B tone. Interestingly, speakers ‘concede’ that these vowels
are “a bit similar”, but claim greater similarity between the variants of the pho-
nological vowel, that is, between [i]/Set A and [ei]/Set B and between [ei]/Set A
and [ai]/Set B.
4 Previous analyses of the tone–vowel interaction
The alternating vowels have been a recalcitrant issue for phonologists. The
following sections illustrate two important phonological analyses proposed
to account for this alternation. What these accounts share is the assumption
that the tones influence the vowels, causing the vowel shifts, which in turn are
analyzed as either raising or lowering of the vowels.
1 These examples continue to use Donohue (2013)’s tone numbers rather than Chao’s original
values to avoid confusion.

Tones and vowels in Fuzhou revisited 87
4.1 Yip 1980
Yip (1980) is an extensive study of tonal phonological phenomena in a range of
Chinese languages. Her analysis of Fuzhou is essentially that the Set B vowels are
basic, and are raised when they co-occur with tones that are [+upper] register. To
account for this, she provides a rule, shown in (4).
(4) V[αlow] → [–low, –αhigh] / [+upper]
This elegant rule, however, fails to capture the simplification of diphthongs (as in
the [i]~[ei] type pairs), nor does it readily account for the fact that [a] is held con-
stant in all tonal contexts. Another shortcoming of this approach is that it results
in a rather unusual vowel inventory, having [ei, øy, ou] but lacking [i, y, u] which
are all derived vowels in this approach. While not all vowel inventories conform
to what is typologically expected, there is no strong independent evidence to
support this choice for Fuzhou (except for the choice of formal rules).
4.2 Jiang-King 1999
Jiang-King (1999) is a study on the tone–vowel interaction in Northern Min,
including Fuzhou.² Jiang-King, following Hyman (1988 and elsewhere), includes
in her tonal representation the moraic structure of the syllable, and relates the
vowel alternations to the tonal changes by appealing to the syllable weight. She
refers to the difference, not in terms of “height” as Yip did, but rather in terms of
“tightness”, whereby the Set A vowels are considered “tight syllables” and the
Set B vowels, “loose”. Jiang-King’s Prosodic Anchor Hypothesis (p. 77) captures
this covariation by postulating, relatively noncontroversially, that tight syllables
have one mora, while loose syllables have two. The leftmost mora is considered
the head, and it can host up to two tones, while non-head morae can only host
one tone. This captures the bigger picture that Jiang-King is claiming, that the
moraic structure determines tone–vowel possibilities. There are other rules
included to change the actual quality of the vowel.
This proposal draws on previous typologically tested work to inform the
hypothesis, but runs into difficulty accounting for vowels whose form, unlike a
monophthong–diphthong pair (e.g. [i]–[ei]), does not change according to the
2 Min dialects were originally divided into Northern and Southern groups. However, more recent
studies argued that the coastal–inland division is more significant and explains certain key
phonological developments in the dialect group better (Norman 1988, Branner 2000). After this,
Fuzhou was reclassified as Eastern Min.

88 Cathryn Donohue
moraic structure of the syllable such as a diphthong pair which changes only the
vowel quality (e.g. [ei]–[ai]), or the monophthong [a] which appears unchanged
across all tones.
5 A new perspective of the tone–vowel
alternations
Yip and Jiang-King both strive to capture the alternating vowels in the syn-
chronic phonology, a goal shared by many addressing tone–vowel interactions
(e.g. Köhnlein (this volume), but cf. Becker & Jurgec (this volume)). However, I
claim that the vowel changes serve a perceptual function in that they enhance the
phonological tone categories when needed.³ Contrary to previous analyses, I do
not believe that their actual forms need to be derived in a synchronic phonology.
Rather, I claim that the vowel alternations serve to keep the phonological catego-
ries distinct, thus (synchronically) enhancing these features.
An important finding of Donohue (2013) was that Fuzhou has a consistent non-
modal phonation produced with tones 3, 4 and 6 in citation position (and occa-
sionally a slight breathiness on tone 2). Indeed, recent studies have shown that
this non-modal phonation is a significant factor in tonal identification in Fuzhou
(e.g. Donohue 2010, 2011, 2012). The use of this creaky voice with tones 3, 4 and 6,
together with the vowel changes also delineating this subset of the tones makes
the assignment of tonal geometric features in Fuzhou relatively straightforward,
as shown in Tab. 4, following standard practices of using the features for register
([±upper]) and tonal contour features ([±high] (e.g. Bao 1990; Snider 1999).
Tab. 4: Tonal features, phonation and vowels in Fuzhou.
Tone Features: Register, Tone Phonation Vowel set
Tone 1 [44] [+upper], [+high] Normal A
Tone 2 [32] [+upper], [–high] Normal/Breathy A
Tone 3 [21] [–upper], [–high] Creaky B
Tone 4 [13] [–upper], [–high, +high] Creaky B
Tone 5 [51] [+upper], [+high, –high] Normal A
Tone 6 [231] [–upper], [–high, +high, –high] Creaky B
Tone 7 [5] [+upper], [+high] Normal A
3 I use the word enhance here simply to mean that the distinctions are heightened or made greater.

Tones and vowels in Fuzhou revisited 89
As one might expect, there are degrees of how much non-modal phonation may be
present in a syllable. The absence of non-modal phonation (in, e.g., high vowels)
does not imply a Set A tone, but certainly the presence of it does imply a Set B
tone. The fact that Donohue (2010, 2011, 2012) found that both the phonation as
well as the slight rise/fall in tonal F0 are significant factors in tonal identification
leads one to believe that they exist to enhance the phonological categories, along
with the vowel changes. One can summarize the perceptual enhancements in the
following way:
Tab. 5: Phonetic enhancements of tonal features in Fuzhou.⁴⁵
Vowels [–upper] tones are produced with set B vowels⁴
Phonation [–high] tones have a non-modal phonation:
[+upper] → slight breathy
[–upper] → creaky
Phonetic
contour⁵
[+high] tones rise a little
[–high] tones fall a little
These enhancements interact in an expected way, resulting in some of the observed
asymmetries in the tone–vowel interaction. As one would expect, a low, open
vowel like [a] is easily produced with creaky voice. There is thus no need for vowel
alternation. Note that if the enhancement were one of lowering, not raising, then
there is not much that [a] can do to “lower”, so a change in voice quality is the next
best thing for making the lower register distinct. The higher vowels are less likely
to carry creaky voice as well or for as long, but they have the much greater shift in
vowel quality (e.g. [i] is produced as [ei], or [ei] is produced as [ai]), so there is not
as great a need for the phonation to endure on these syllables.⁶
As noted, these changes in vowel quality and voice quality only occur in
citation/prepausal position, not in sandhi position. The reason for this is twofold:
Tones in prepausal position (citation or non-sandhi tones) can be up to one and
4 Following the standard practice in the literature I continue to use [±upper] to refer to the two
registers even though associating [lower] with creaky voice may make a more phonetically trans-
parent link between the two.
5 These are apparent only in simplex contours – level tones expressed by a single tone, and not
complex contours involving the movement between tones.
6 Note that one could also analyze the phonation changes as creak enhancing [–upper]. But
the advantage of interpreting the data this way is the ability to generalize that low tones (e.g.
[–high]) prefer non-modal phonation, which is either (optionally) breathy in the higher register
([+upper]) or creaky in the lower register ([–upper]).
Q: Please
provide
citation
for Tab. 5.

90 Cathryn Donohue
a half times longer in duration. This affords much greater time to accommodate
the additional vocal gestures necessary to invoke these changes in voice/vowel
quality.
When spoken in isolation (e.g. citation tones) or when not surrounded by
other syllables (e.g. sandhi tones) that provide syntactic or semantic information
as well as phonological information to help disambiguate, there is a greater need
to provide that additional information.
Another question that needs to be addressed is where the vowels come from –
why are those vowel quality changes observed and not others (e.g. why [i]~[ei]
and not [i]~[ɪ] or [i]~[e], for example)? This is the question that previous research
has worked hard to address, but is a question that I will not attempt to answer
by deriving the changes in a synchronic phonology. Instead, I claim that these
vowel “pairings” exist as historical residue. At some point in the development of
Chinese vowels split into “higher” and “lower” vowels. It is not the goal of the
paper to investigate when or why, but rather to note that at some point in time,
different dialects typically favoured one or other of these vowel types (higher or
lower). Consider the examples in Tab. 6, with Cantonese and Mandarin showing
the different reflexes. In these examples, Mandarin has the monophthongal
variants where Cantonese has a lowered vowel. These correspondences are not
across the board, but there does appear to be a general tendency. Moreover, if we
look beyond Fuzhou and northern Min, this type of vowel–register alternation
can be also found elsewhere in South East Asia, so could well be best construed
as an areal phenomenon changes (e.g. Mpi (Thailand; Ladefoged & Maddieson
1996, Denning 1989), Hani (Vietnam; Edmondson 2002). Perhaps in observing the
greater, areal picture, the answer to the question of “why these forms” may find a
more straightforward answer, though it will likely still be an answer drawing on
the language history of the region, not a synchronic derivation.
Tab. 6: Some vowel correspondences across three varieties of Chinese.
Mandarin Cantonese Fuzhou Fuzhou Tone Word
tshi khei khi 1 [44] Upper-H 󰏴‘period’
tu tou tu 2 [32] Upper-L 󲧂‘gamble’
thu thou thu 5 [51] Upper-HL ‘on foot’
tu tok tuʔ 7 [5] Upper-H 󰢧‘poison’
tsi kei kei 3 [21] Lower-L 󱺿‘since’
ti tek teiʔ4 [23] Lower-LH 󰝳‘drip’
tu tou tou 6 [231] Lower-LHL ‘degree’

Tones and vowels in Fuzhou revisited 91
6 Concluding remarks
A general suggestion made here is that the tones are best conceptualized as an
amalgam of features, which are kept distinct through various phonetic measures
serving to enhance the distinctions where possible, and where necessary. These
enhancements include both changes in voice quality (phonation) and vowel
quality as well as slight rises or falls of F0 contours in so-called “level” tones.
The involvement of all these factors is consistent with data from other South
East Asian languages, such as Burmese (Bradley 1982), where either F0 or pho-
nation can be manipulated to signal a tonal category. Eastern Cham (Brunelle
2005, 2009) is another example where phonological register is manifested by
phonation as well as pitch. Furthermore, qualitatively similar vowel alternations
may be observed in languages throughout South East Asia where there is known
vowel–“register” interaction. These data further suggest that these different pho-
netic factors are bundled together phonologically for at least some languages and
that a vowel–“register” alternation may best be approached as an areal phenom-
enon as opposed to a peculiar tonal phenomenon limited to northern Min varie-
ties of Chinese. Rather than focusing on how to derive the exact vowel qualities
in Fuzhou vowel alternations, it thus follows that it is preferable to conceptualize
the phenomenon as part of a set of enhancements to the phonological category
of tone, using those phonetic features as they are available and when they are
necessary.
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