Conceptual Foundations of a Prosodic Model for Mandarin

Abstract

I examine various controversial aspects of Chinese prosody–tone structure, syllable structure, stress, and intonation–and stress the need to view all of these as interacting systems, aspects of a hierarchical prosodic structure. I examine various proposals at these various levels of the hierarchy and suggest which are most appropriate. Specifically, I suggest the adoption of Baos version of syllable and tone, and a view of the foot that emphasizes its function as an organizing level in the prosodic hierarchy while discarding the one stress per foot principle. It is still not possible to make any definitive claims regarding an optimal model for intonation, but I examine work done by, amongst others, Kratochvil, Ladd, Shih, and Garding et al., and suggest promising directions for future work.