Analysis of fundamental frequency contours of Cantonese based on a command-response model

As a major Chinese dialect, Cantonese is well known for its complex tone system. This paper presents a preliminary analysis of the F0 contours of Cantonese using a command-response model. Experiments are conducted on a set of designed sentences, from which a set of appropriate tone command patterns for each tone is derived by Analysis-by-Synthesis. The model shows a high accuracy of approximation to the F0 contours of Cantonese, and hence provides a much more efficient description of continuous F0 contours than the traditional 5-scale tone letter notation system.