Acoustic analysis of vowel nasalization in Taizhou Chinese

This study investigates the nasality of the nasal vowels, [ĩ ũ ẽ], and the nasalized V[ŋ] rhymes, [iŋ əŋ aŋ ɔŋ], in Taizhou Chinese. It also examines the weakening of the final nasal in the V[ŋ] rhymes. Praat was used to perform A1-H1, A1-P1, and MaxDA3 measurements of the test nasal vowels and V[ŋ] rhymes and their comparable oral counterparts produced by ten native Taizhou speakers. The analyzed data show that (i) [ĩ] and [ũ] are nasalized throughout; (ii) [ẽ] is partially or nearly denasalized, which is accompanied by the diphthongization of the oral counterpart [e]; (iii) in [əŋ aŋ ɔŋ], the vowel is nasalized throughout, while the final [ŋ] may be dropped when preceded by the non-back vowel [ə] or [a]; and (iv) in [iŋ], [i] is nasalized throughout when [ŋ] is retained, but nasalized partly when [ŋ] is dropped.