Organizing Syllables into Sandhi Domains - Evidence from F0 and Duration Patterns in Shanghai Chinese

In this study we investigated grouping-related F0 patterns in Shanghai Chinese by examining the effect of syllable position in a sandhi domain while controlling for tone, number of syllables in a domain, and focus condition. Results showed that F0 alignment had the most consistent grouping-related patterns, and syllable duration was positively related to F0 movement. Focus and word length both increased F0 peak and F0 excursion, but they had opposite influence on F0 slope, which indicated that focus and word length had different mechanisms in affecting F0 implementation, as focus increased articulation strength while word length influenced speaker’s pre-planning.