Tonal Variations in Tone 3 Sandhi in Macau Mandarin

Relatively few studies have explored the tonal variations, particularly tone sandhi in Macau Mandarin despite a growing recognition of Macau for its multilingual context and the rapid development of the Global Chinese paradigm. This study investigates the variation of Tone 3(T3) sandhi in Macau Mandarin. Twenty-four fluent Mandarin speakers, whose native language is Cantonese, were recruited for the study. The results show that the sandhi T3 is mainly realized as the level-rising contour rather than rising tone in Macau Mandarin, which might be related to the tonal reduction. Additionally, due to the different contexts in citation and sandhi tones, the non-final T2 in the T2T3 combination and the sandhi T3 significantly differ from the citation T2. Furthermore, regardless of the tonal variations in final T3 in the T3T3 combination, T3 sandhi consistently implements. This indicates that the surface sandhi contours are parts of the abstract T3 category instead of parts of morphemes. This study offers a case study of tonal variations in the Global Chinese field, contributes to a better understanding of the forces of tonal variations and has implications for Mandarin teaching in Macau.

Keywords

tonal variations, tone 3 sandhi, Macau Mandarin, Global Chinese

source

International Journal of Chinese Language Education; Jun 2025; Issue No. 17; p. 223-243

Language

Chinese