ISCA Archive TAL 2006
ISCA Archive TAL 2006

A phonetic study on the acquisition of Cantonese tone

Ka Yan Margaret Lei

This study adopts an acoustical approach in analyzing the fundamental frequency (F0) patterns in tonal production of a Cantonese-speaking child, based on audio data from the Hong Kong Cantonese Child Language Corpus (CANCORP) [1]. Through examining F0 patterns and variability on the production of different types of tones in Cantonese, the study attempts to address issues in the acquisition of tone by Cantonese-acquiring children.