This paper aims to analyze boundary tone, pitch pattern and transition of neutral tone in Standard Chinese. Because the neutral tone is not an independent element that stands by itself and it does not have any phonemic tone in itself, its pitch variation, unlike that of non-neutral tone, has much possibility of being affected by intonation, especially in boundary tone. Neutral tone can give us a good tool for studying intonation of tone language like Chinese. Results of the analyses show that pitch variation of neutral tone and neutral tone boundary has following characteristics: First, neutral tone boundary has relatively stable pitch contour when it represents utterance type. It has 2 degree of 5-degree system in declarative and 3 degree in interrogative. Second, neutral tone is much influenced by preceeding non neutral tone. Though the final pitch target keeps stable, the linear interpolation from non-neutral tone to neutral tone is much variable according to tonal pitch contour of non-neutral tone. Neutral boundary tone following tone 1 and tone 4 shows level contour, but the tone following tone 2 and tone 3 shows falling and rising contour respectively. Finally, utterance-final neutral tone keeps most stable in experiment sentences. Non-utterance-final neutral tone serves as linear interpolation of pitch targets or peak delay of non-neutral tones. This paper aims to analyze boundary tone, pitch pattern and transition of neutral tone in Standard Chinese. Because the neutral tone is not an independent element that stands by itself and it does not have any phonemic tone in itself, its pitch variation, unlike that of non-neutral tone, has much possibility of being affected by intonation, especially in boundary tone. Neutral tone can give us a good tool for studying intonation of tone language like Chinese. Results of the analyses show that pitch variation of neutral tone and neutral tone boundary has following characteristics: First, neutral tone boundary has relatively stable pitch contour when it represents utterance type. It has 2 degree of 5-degree system in declarative and 3 degree in interrogative. Second, neutral tone is much influenced by preceeding non neutral tone. Though the final pitch target keeps stable, the linear interpolation from non-neutral tone to neutral tone is much variable according to tonal pitch contour of non-neutral tone. Neutral boundary tone following tone 1 and tone 4 shows level contour, but the tone following tone 2 and tone 3 shows falling and rising contour respectively. Finally, utterance-final neutral tone keeps most stable in experiment sentences. Non-utterance-final neutral tone serves as linear interpolation of pitch targets or peak delay of non-neutral tones.
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