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International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages
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International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages
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Early studies of the pitch of the neutral tone are confined to the study of its appearance in the second syllable of disyllabic sequences in Beijing dialect. Although the study was extended to more dialects later, it was still confined to disyllabic sequences. This paper argues that in trisyllabic sequences with the neutral tone in the middle, the syllable following the neutral tone plays different roles in different dialects. So in studying the pitch of the neutral tone, it is imperative also to take into consideration trisyllabic sequences in order to have an overall understanding of the neutral tone and to compare the properties of the neutral tone in different dialects.
Bibliographic reference. Wang, Jialing (2004): "The neutral tone in trisyllabic sequences in Chinese dialects", In TAL-2004, 201-202.