Dissertation
Advancing Explanatory and Tonal Dialectometry
On the 13th of February, Matthew Sung successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Matthew on this achievement!
- Author
- Ho Wang Matthew Sung
- Date
- 13 February 2026
- Links
- Leiden University Repository
Dialectometry is a quantitative branch of dialectology, which makes use of computational and statistical methods on dialect data in order to understand language variation in space. The current dissertation presents how dialectometry can deepen our understanding of the variation of Yue dialects spoken in Southern China. It also shows how Yue can help us to broaden the scope of computational methods used in dialectometry, particularly in accounting for tonal languages, which are common in the world, but not so common as a subject of study within dialectometry.
A number of research questions are addressed in the current dissertation, and they fall under the following themes: 1) segmental classification of Yue dialects, 2) identification of characteristic features of Yue dialects, 3) tonal classification of Yue dialects and 4) comparison between segmental and tonal variation within Yue dialects.
The current thesis has demonstrated that computational methods are not there to replace humans. They help us to overcome the limits and barriers of manual analyses. These methods do not directly provide the answers to the research questions – interpretations are still required to be made by the experts with their experience.