Post-focus F0 compression—Now you see it, now you don’t

We report data on post-focus realization of lexical tones in Standard Chinese, comparing them to their counterparts in the pre-focus and on-focus conditions reported in Chen and Gussenhoven (2008). While post-focus lexical tones are often realized with a compressed F0 range as observed in prior studies, in some tonal contexts, their F0 range is expanded. In addition, some post-focus tones also show a long-lasting effect of the preceding tone, but with a pattern different from the usual tonal co-articulation effect. What consistently differentiates the post-focus from the on-focus condition is the degree of distinctiveness in the lexical tonal contours, in particular when the preceding focused tone is High. These data suggest that F0 range compression is not the only and primary characteristic of post-focus tonal realization. Rather, the observed post-focus effects may be viewed as the multifaceted manifestations of weak implementation of post-focus tonal targets, as they are associated with prosodically non-prominent constituents.