Presentation
Functional load, token frequency, and contact-induced change in Toronto Heritage Cantonese vowels
Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting
(2020)
Abstract
Unlike many previous studies of heritage speakers showing phonological maintenance, this presentation will show evidence for a vowel merger among second-generation Toronto Cantonese speakers. Two pairs of vowels are tested for merger. Both pairs are hypothesized to merge due to the lack of similar contrasts in Toronto English: /y/~/u/ and /a/~/ɔ/. Results show merger for only /y/~/u/. This is argued to be due to the lower functional load of /y/~/u/ (three minimal pairs with /y/~/u/, but 105 minimal pairs for /a/~/ɔ/) and due to lower token frequency of /y/ and /u/ compared to /a/ and /ɔ/ in conversational speech.
Keywords
- sound change,
- heritage languages,
- Chinese - Yue,
- sociophonetics,
- bilingualism
Disciplines
Publication Date
January 2, 2020
Location
New Orleans, LA
Citation Information
Holman Tse. "Functional load, token frequency, and contact-induced change in Toronto Heritage Cantonese vowels" Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting (2020) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/holman-tse/8/
Creative Commons License
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