Acoustic Analysis of Age-related Variability of Guangzhou Cantonese Tone Merging Based on the Linear Regression

摘要

The present study is a production experiment with an attempt to examine age-related variability in Guangzhou Cantonese tones, in order to predict the tendency of the tone change. The basic parameters of the statistical analysis like mean values, standard deviation, coefficient of the linear regression were used. The Praat, a software in speech analysis, was used for data labeling and tracking. The R, a software in statistical computing and graphics, was used for drawing F0 trajectories and scatter plots. The results reveal both similarities and differences between the young and the old group. Both groups still retain the six tone categories, which is the canonical non-checked tone pattern. Many overlaps in four tone pairs have been found through scatter plots in the two groups, indicating that the merging of some tone pairs, i.e., T3 vs. T6, T2 vs. T5, T3 vs. T5, T4 vs. T6, is underway. The young group exhibits some differences from the old group in that T6 is merging into T3, and T5 is merging into T2. The age-related differences in fundamental frequency have significant implications for Cantonese speech recognition and synthesis.