Research on downstep of high-low sequences in Chinese

摘要

In this study, the downstep principle in Chinese tone production is analyzed, and it is found that downstep exists for high (H) tones. They will drop to a lower scale compared to the forgoing ones. The degree of the first downstep is always larger than the following ones, but there are no differences in the degrees of downsteps for the last three downsteps. The speaker tends to depress the final H tone when there are more downsteps.