Investigating the Effect of Min on Dialectal Variations of Mandarin Tonal Realization

This paper investigated the effect of Min on dialectal variations of Mandarin tonal realization. Experiment 1 recruited 12 females, 7 from China and 5 from Taiwan. Results showed that tones in Taiwan had lower pitch register than those in China. Experiment 2 tested 20 subjects, half from Taipei and half from Taichung. Results showed that Taichung had lower pitch register than Taipei. It is surmised that Min plays a major role in forming these dialectal variants.