The interaction of phonology and phonetics on Sakizaya: vowels, lexical accent and sentential intonation

This thesis is the first study investigating the interface between phonology and phonetics in Sakizaya. Three aspects are mainly discussed in this thesis. The first study is focused on the controversial issue that whether /o/ is a phoneme in Sakizaya or not. The second study is about acoustic parameters which can contrast accent from non-accent. The final study aims to provide basic sentential intonation, including four different sentence types. The significance of this current thesis lies in providing not only a thorough sketch of the phonology in Sakizaya but also a theoretical contribution to the interface between phonology and phonetics. raditionally, [o] is considered an allophone of /u/ which occurs adjacently to glottal stop or pharyngeal fricative in Sakizaya. We conducted three different methods to support our proposal that/o/ is a separate phoneme in Sakizaya. The first one is to use phonetic analysis to delimit the vowel formant ranges of [u] and allophonic [o] and then we categorize the vowels which perceptually sound like [o]’s according to the vowel formant ranges. We found some words containing /o/ which is not an allophonic [o]. The second method is to find near-minimal pairs. Since two sounds can occur in the same phonological environment, their occurrences are unpredictable, they should be regarded as separate phonemes. In our investigation, we found one near-minimal pair from two of our speakers, respectively. The third method is to use loanword adaptation to propose that /o/ might be internalized in Sakizaya people’s lexicon. Due to repeated inputs of Japanese loanwords containing /o/, /o/ might be acquired and become a new phoneme in Sakizaya.he second study investigates the acoustic parameters which can contrast accent from non-accent in Sakizaya. Six parameters include F0 height, pitch range, F0 peak alignment, slope, duration and intensity. We found that among the six parameters F0 height and pitch range are main factors that can distinguish accent from non-accent. The final study provides a description of intonation in Sakizaya, including declarative, negation, yes-no question and question-word sentences. Declarative sentences end with a falling pitch. Negators are usually the most prominent item in pitch in negation sentences. Yes-no question sentences has a low-high contrast on the final grammatical marker “haw” at the end of the sentence. Question-word interrogatives end with a falling pitch and question words are usually the most prominent in pitch. In conclusion, this thesis provides a thorough investigation of the interface between phonology and phonetics and contributes to the further study of Sakizaya in the future.