Effects of interrogative mood and focus on the pitch realization of Chinese lexical tones

The effects of interrogative mood and focus on the pitch realization of four Chinese lexical tones are investigated by the means of tone arrangement. The fundamental frequency (F0) of designed sentences with special tone combinations is analyzed and the results show that: Under broad focus condition, the high pitch components of Yinping, Yangping and falling tones are raised by interrogative mood, resulting in a gradual upward trend of the upper pitch limit of interrogative sentence. The low pitch point of each tone is higher in interrogative sentences than in declarative ones from the beginning. But the lower limit of pitch range in interrogative sentences keeps level basically, and the difference between the two sentences becomes more and more significant due to the gradual decline of the lower limit of pitch range in declarative sentences. When there is a focus in an interrogative sentence, compared with broad-focused declarative sentences, the dual effects of interrogative mood and focus are as follows: (1) on the focused words, the dual effects on the upper limit of interrogative sentences are similar as the effect of focus on that of declarative sentences. But there is neutralization between the pitch raising effect of interrogative mood and the pitch lowering effect of focus on the lower limit; (2) after the focused word, the focus lowers the high pitch limit of interrogative sentences obviously, but shows no significant effect on the low pitch limit. Therefore, the effects of interrogative mood and focus on pitch contours of sentences are comprehensive, both can affect the pitch value and contours of four lexical tones, but the effects are different on different positions and different tones in sentences.