Tone sandhi and tonal coarticulation in disyllabic sequences in Changsha Xiang

This study investigates tone sandhi and tonal coarticulation in disyllabic sequences in Changsha Xiang, a Sinitic language with six lexical tones in Hunan Province, China. Changsha Xiang exhibits two distinct tone sandhi patterns: right-dominant and left-dominant. Previous descriptions of these patterns have been largely impressionistic, lacking an instrumental phonetic analysis. Building on data from 16 native speakers, this study provides an acoustic analysis of the tonal realization, coarticulation, and phonetic reduction patterns in Changsha Xiang. Our results indicate that in right-dominant sequences, the non-dominant syllable exhibits reduced F0 excursion without neutralization, whereas in left-dominant sequences, the non-dominant syllable undergoes paradigmatic neutralization to four short level tones. Additionally, the study finds that the tone sandhi pattern affects tonal coarticulation, with a larger carryover effect in non-dominant final syllables. These findings contribute to a broader understanding of tonal processes in Sinitic languages and highlight parallels between tone sandhi and stress-tone interactions in other languages.