Veerakit Phadungsrisavas. An acoustical comparative study of swatow Chinese tones spoken in five regions of Thailand. Master's Degree(Linguistics). Mahidol University. : Mahidol University, 2009-03-31.
An acoustical comparative study of swatow Chinese tones spoken in five regions of Thailand
Abstract:
The objectives of this thesis were to study the tonal systems and tone sandhi patterns of Swatow Chinese dialects in five regions of Thailand. The data were collected from five regions: Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Chon Buri, and Nakhon Ratchasima. A total number of twenty Swatow informants were used with four representatives from each region. Both auditory judgment and acoustic judgment were used in order to analyze the data. For acoustic analysis, this research used PRAAT version 5.0.4.5. The findings revealed that every dialect had the same four tones. They were - low falling tone, high falling tone, high rising tone, and low falling rising tone. However, there were two differences in regarding two of the tones: 1) mid-level tone can occur in Bangkok and Nakhon Ratchasima; 2) mid falling rising tone can occur in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Nakhon Ratchasima. Nakhon Ratchasima Swatow dialects tone system and tone sandhi pattern was the most similar to that of the Bangkok Swatow dialect because they both had the same tonal characteristics and their tone sandhi patterns were nearly the same. The Phuket and Chon Buri dialects had the tone systems and tone sandhi patterns which differed the most from those of the Bangkok Swatow dialect.