The Prosodic Characteristics of the Number Words in Hong Kong Cantonese

The paper investigates the prosodic characteristics, including the temporal structure, F0, and intensity, of the monosyllabic number words (MNW) and compound number words (CNW), bisyllabic and trisyllabic, in Hong Kong Cantonese. Results of analysis show that (i) the rime durations of all the MNW in isolation are reduced when the MNW occur as component MNW in the CNW; (ii) not all the initial consonants of the component MNW in the CNW are reduced; (iii) the reduction of the rimes and initial consonants for the component MNW varies according to the position in the CNW; (iv) the closure duration in the CNW also varies according to the position in the CNW; (v) the shapes of the F0 contours of the citation tones on the component MNW in the CNW are maintained, though the F0 level is slightly lowered for the MNW in the CNW-final position; and (vi) the intensity level is also slightly lowered for the component MNW in the CNW-final position.