The Variation, Change, and Opacity of Tone Neutralization in Cantonese: Its ‘Unity in Variety’ and Implications for Tonal Representations

Abstract

Pinjam is morphophonemic tone neutralization in Cantonese whose detailed facts have been described since Yue-Hashimoto (1972) and whose basic mechanism has been unveiled since Yip (1980). Subsequent studies have elaborated extensive analyses in various morphological alternations. However, dynamic facts about its variation and change have not been well understood. Also, the interaction between pinjam and tone sandhi is still a mystery that involves opacity. So our goal is to empirically validate new facts about its variation and change and show a unified model using Optimality Theory that accounts for the apparently chaotic phenomena including its opaque interactions with tone sandhi.