1.3　Introduction of Ningbo Chinese

Ningbo, located at longitude 120º55’ east and latitude 28º51’ north, is an important seaport on the east coast of China.The Ningbo Chinese belongs to the Mingzhou branch of the Taihu subgroup of the Wu dialect family.It is spoken by about 5 million people （Fu et al., 1985, 1986）.The present study does not cover regional and/or age variations of Ningbo Chinese （see Tang et al., 1997 for a discussion）.The acoustic, articulatory, and aerodynamic data discussed in the present study is mainly based on the speeches of the young generation in the metropolitan Ningbo.

The consonant system in Ningbo consists of nine stops [p ph b t th d k kh ɡ], 1 glottal stop [ʔ], eight fricatives [f v s z ɕ ʑ h ɦ], six affricates [ts tsh dz tɕ tɕh dʑ], four nasals [m n ȵ ŋ], and one lateral liquid [l] as shown in the consonant chart in Table 1.1.

Ningbo Chinese has a rich inventory of resonant sounds, both monothongs and diphthongs.In addtion to two apical vowels [ɿ ɥ], there are ten monothongal vowels [i y ʏ e ø ɛ a ɔ o u], which appear in the （C）V or （C）Vʔ syllables.Phonologically speaking, Ningbo, like many other Chinese dialects, does not contrast in a long vs.short vowel distinction.However, there do exist two phonetically short vowels, [a o], which appear in the （C）Vʔ checked syllables.In addition to the monophthongs, there are nine diphthongs [ai au œy ia ie io yo ua uɛ] and one triphthong [uai] in Ningbo.Diphthongs [ai au œy ia io ua uɛ] occur in the （C）D position, [ie yo] occur in the （C）Dʔ position, and [ua] occurs in both （C）D and （C）Dʔ positions.The triphthong [uai] only occurs in the （C）T position[2].

In addition to the oral vowels, there are two nasal vowels and four nasal diphthongs in Ningbo.And two vowels [i o] and a diphthong [yo] can occur before the nasal ending [ŋ].

Ningbo has six citation tones as shown in Table 1.2..

The Yin-series tones are associated with a voiceless initial consonant and the Yang-series with a voiced initial consonant.The short tones only occur in the checked syllables.