  Few studies have worked on the effects of tonal coarticulation and prosodic
positions on the low rising tone in Xiamen Dialect. This study addressed such
an issue. To do so, a new method, the Tonal Contour Analysis in Tonal Triangle,
was proposed to measure the subtle curvature of the tonal contour. Findings are
as follows: (1) The low rising tone in Xiamen Dialect has a tendency towards
the falling-rising tone, which is significantly affected by the tonal
coarticulation and prosodic positions. (2) The low rising tone presents as a
falling-rising tone when preceded by a tone with a high offset, and as a low
rising tone when preceded by a tone that ends up low. (3) The curvature of the
low rising tone is greatest in the sentence-initial position, and is positively
correlated to its own duration.
