Open AccessThe tone system of Ruc and tonogenesis in Vietic languages
Author(s) -
Tấn Thành Tạ
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
khoa học và công nghệ: khoa học xã hội và nhân văn
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2588-1043
DOI - 10.32508/stdjssh.v5i1.568
Subject(s) - register (sociolinguistics) , tone (literature) , breathy voice , context (archaeology) , speech recognition , mathematics , linguistics , acoustics , phonation , audiology , psychology , computer science , history , physics , medicine , philosophy , archaeology
Rục, a dialect of the ethnic group of Chứt spoken in the mountainous area in Quảng Bình province, has been describing as a tonal language with four tones characterized by pitch (F0), voice quality and laryngeal features; however, there has been no experimental study on the tone system of Rục. In Summer 2019, we recorded 20 Ruc speakers (10 women) reading a wordlist including 66 words made of five vowels /iː, ɛː, uː, ɔː, aː/ in combination with different dental and velar onsets and the four tones. The results show that the four tones in Rục are differentiated by pitch height and pitch contour. Moreover, spectral measurements (H1-H2, H1-A1, H1-A2 and CPP) indicate that two low-register tones (derived from voiced onsets) have a breathy voice compared to a modal voice in two high-register tones (derived from voiceless onsets). In words with the two low-register tones, vowels tend to be pronounced with a higher aperture (a lower F1) than in high-register tones context. These results support and update theories on tonongenesis and registrogenesis in Vietic languages and Mon-Khmer languages in general.