Abstract
The aim of the thesis is to investigate whether Japanese loanwords in Mainstream Taiwanese Southern Min (TSM) have different phonetic realizations from native words. Therefore, this thesis provides acoustic descriptions of tones of both native words and loanwords of Taiwanese Southern Min respectively. And then a comparison is made between Japanese loanwords and native words in terms of fundamental frequency (F0) and duration. The main findings are as follows: first, our acoustic study’s results of Japanese loanwords are not completely consistent with the previous impressionistic transcription. Second, the loan rising tone is different from that in the previous studies. Third, we found a new “half-long” mid falling tone in both native words and loanwords. Fourth, the non-final vowel durations of the high tones and mid tones (both in CV structure) from Japanese loanwords are relatively shorter than those from native words.