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Middle Chinese

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Middle Chinese
Ancient Chinese
Hán ngữhɑnHŋɨʌX
A scroll with Chinese writing, with large head characters
Part of theTangyun,an 8th-century edition of theQieyundictionary
Native toChina
Era4th–12th centuries CE[1]
Northern and Southern dynasties,Sui,Tang,Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period,Song
Early forms
Chinese characters
Language codes
ISO 639-3ltc
ltc
Glottologmidd1344
Chinese name
Traditional ChineseTrung cổ Hán ngữ
Simplified ChineseTrung cổ Hán ngữ

Middle Chinese(formerly known asAncient Chinese) or theQieyun system(QYS) is the historical variety ofChineserecorded in theQieyun,arime dictionaryfirst published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The Swedish linguistBernhard Karlgrenbelieved that the dictionary recorded a speech standard of the capitalChang'anof theSuiandTang dynasties.However, based on the preface of theQieyun,most scholars now believe that it records a compromise between northern and southern reading and poetic traditions from the lateNorthern and Southern dynastiesperiod. This composite system contains important information for the reconstruction of the preceding system ofOld Chinese phonology(early 1st millennium BC).

Thefanqiemethod used to indicate pronunciation in these dictionaries, though an improvement on earlier methods, proved awkward in practice. The mid-12th-centuryYunjingand otherrime tablesincorporate a more sophisticated and convenient analysis of theQieyunphonology. The rime tables attest to a number of sound changes that had occurred over the centuries following the publication of theQieyun.Linguists sometimes refer to the system of theQieyunasEarly Middle Chineseand the variant revealed by the rime tables asLate Middle Chinese.

The dictionaries and tables describe pronunciations in relative terms, but do not give their actual sounds. Karlgren was the first to attempta reconstruction of the sounds of Middle Chinese,comparing its categories with modernvarieties of Chineseand theSino-Xenic pronunciationsused in the reading traditions of neighbouring countries. Several other scholars have produced their own reconstructions using similar methods.

The Qieyun system is often used as a framework for Chinese dialectology. With the exception ofMinvarieties, which show independent developments from Old Chinese, modern Chinese varieties can be largely treated as divergent developments from it. The study of Middle Chinese also provides for a better understanding and analysis ofClassical Chinese poetry,such as the study ofTang poetry.

Sources[edit]

The reconstruction of Middle Chinese phonology is largely dependent upon detailed descriptions in a few original sources. The most important of these is theQieyunrime dictionary(601) and its revisions. TheQieyunis often used together with interpretations inSong dynastyrime tablessuch as theYunjing,Qiyin lüe,and the laterQieyun zhizhangtuandSisheng dengzi.The documentary sources are supplemented by comparison with modernChinese varieties,pronunciation of Chinese words borrowed by other languages—particularlyJapanese,KoreanandVietnamese—transcription into Chinese charactersof foreign names, transcription of Chinese names in Alpha betic scripts such asBrahmi,Tibetanand Uyghur, and evidence regarding rhyme and tone patterns from classicalChinese poetry.[2]

Rime dictionaries[edit]

Main article:Rime dictionary
two pages of a Chinese dictionary, comprising the end of the index and the start of the entries
The start of the first rhyme class of theGuangyun(Đôngdōng'east')

Chinese scholars of theNorthern and Southern dynastiesperiod were concerned with the correct recitation of the classics. Various schools produced dictionaries to codify reading pronunciations and the associated rhyme conventions of regulated verse.[3][a]TheQieyun(601) was an attempt to merge the distinctions in six earlier dictionaries, which were eclipsed by its success and are no longer extant. It was accepted as the standard reading pronunciation during theTang dynasty,and went through several revisions and expansions over the following centuries.[5]

TheQieyunis thus the oldest surviving rhyme dictionary and the main source for the pronunciation of characters in Early Middle Chinese (EMC). At the time ofBernhard Karlgren's seminal work on Middle Chinese in the early 20th century, only fragments of theQieyunwere known, and scholars relied on theGuangyun(1008), a much expanded edition from the Song dynasty. However, significant sections of a version of theQieyunitself were subsequently discovered in the caves ofDunhuang,and a complete copy of Wang Renxu's 706 edition from the Palace Library was found in 1947.[6]

The rhyme dictionaries organize Chinese characters by their pronunciation, according to a hierarchy of tone, rhyme and homophony. Characters with identical pronunciations are grouped into homophone classes, whose pronunciation is described using twofanqiecharacters, the first of which has the initial sound of the characters in the homophone class and second of which has the same sound as the rest of the syllable (the final). The use offanqiewas an important innovation of theQieyunand allowed the pronunciation of all characters to be described exactly; earlier dictionaries simply described the pronunciation of unfamiliar characters in terms of the most similar-sounding familiar character.[7]

Thefanqiesystem uses multiple equivalent characters to represent each particular initial, and likewise for finals. The categories of initials and finals actually represented were first identified by the Cantonese scholarChen Liin a careful analysis published in hisQieyun kao(1842). Chen's method was to equate twofanqieinitials (or finals) whenever one was used in thefanqiespelling of the pronunciation of the other, and to follow chains of such equivalences to identify groups of spellers for each initial or final.[8]For example, the pronunciation of the characterĐôngwas given using thefanqiespellingĐức hồng,the pronunciation ofĐứcwas given asNhiều đặc,and the pronunciation ofNhiềuwas given asĐức hà,from which we can conclude that the wordsĐông,ĐứcandNhiềuall had the same initial sound.[9]

TheQieyunclassified homonyms under 193 rhyme classes, each of which is placed within one of the four tones.[10]A single rhyme class may contain multiple finals, generally differing only in the medial (especially when it is/w/) or in so-calledchongniudoublets.[11][12]

Rime tables[edit]

Main article:Rime table
table of 23 columns and 16 rows, with Chinese characters in some cells
The first table of theYunjing,covering theGuangyunrhyme classesĐôngdōng,Đổngdǒng,ĐưasòngandPhòngwū(/-k/in Middle Chinese)

TheYunjing(c. 1150 AD) is the oldest of the so-calledrime tables,which provide a more detailed phonological analysis of the system contained in theQieyun.TheYunjingwas created centuries after theQieyun,and the authors of theYunjingwere attempting to interpret a phonological system that differed in significant ways from that of their own Late Middle Chinese (LMC) dialect. They were aware of this, and attempted to reconstructQieyunphonology as well as possible through a close analysis of regularities in the system and co-occurrence relationships between the initials and finals indicated by thefanqiecharacters. However, the analysis inevitably shows some influence from LMC, which needs to be taken into account when interpreting difficult aspects of the system.[13]

TheYunjingis organized into 43 tables, each covering severalQieyunrhyme classes, and classified as:[14]

  • One of 16 broad rhyme classes (shè)—each described as either "inner" or "outer". The meaning of this is debated but it has been suggested that it refers to the height of the main vowel, with "outer" finals having anopen vowel(/ɑ/or/a/,/æ/) and "inner" finals having amidorclose vowel.
  • "Open mouth" or "closed mouth", indicating whetherlip roundingis present. "Closed" finals either have a rounded vowel (e.g./u/) or rounded glide.

Each table has 23 columns, one for each initial consonant. Although theYunjingdistinguishes 36 initials, they are placed in 23 columns by combining palatals, retroflexes, and dentals under the same column. This does not lead to cases where two homophone classes are conflated, as the grades (rows) are arranged so that all would-beminimal pairsdistinguished only by the retroflex vs. palatal vs. alveolar character of the initial end up in different rows.[15]

Each initial is further classified as follows:[16]

Each table also has 16 rows, with a group of 4 rows for each of the four tones of the traditional system in which finals ending in/p/,/t/or/k/are considered to bechecked tonevariants of finals ending in/m/,/n/or/ŋ/rather than separate finals in their own right. The significance of the 4 rows within each tone is difficult to interpret, and is strongly debated. These rows are usually denoted I, II, III and IV, and are thought to relate to differences inpalatalizationorretroflexionof the syllable's initial or medial, or differences in the quality of similar main vowels (e.g./ɑ/,/a/,/ɛ/).[14]Other scholars do not view them not as phonetic categories, but instead as formal devices exploiting distributional patterns in theQieyunto achieve a compact presentation.[17]

Each square in a table contains a character corresponding to a particular homophone class in theQieyun,if any such character exists. From this arrangement, each homophone class can be placed in the above categories.[18]

Modern dialects and Sino-Xenic pronunciations[edit]

The rime dictionaries and rime tables identify categories of phonetic distinctions but do not indicate the actual pronunciations of these categories. The varied pronunciations of words in modernvarieties of Chinesecan help, but most modern varieties descend from a Late Middle Chinesekoinéand cannot very easily be used to determine the pronunciation of Early Middle Chinese. During the Early Middle Chinese period, large amounts of Chinese vocabulary were systematically borrowed by Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese (collectively theSino-Xenic pronunciations), but many distinctions were inevitably lost in mapping Chinese phonology onto foreign phonological systems.[19]

For example, the following table shows the pronunciation of the numerals in three modern Chinese varieties, as well as borrowed forms in Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese:

Modern Chinese varieties Sino-Vietnamese Sino-Korean(Yale) Sino-Japanese[20] Middle Chinese[b]
Beijing Suzhou Guangzhou Go-on Kan-on
1 Một yī ɤʔ7 jat1 nhất il ichi itsu ʔjit
2 Nhị èr ɲi6 ji6 nhị i ni ji nyijH
3 Tam sān sɛ1 saam1 tam sam san sam
4 Bốn sì sɨ5 sei3 tứ sa shi sijH
5 Năm wǔ ŋ6 ng5 ngũ o go nguX
6 Sáu liù loʔ8 luk6 lục [r]yuk roku riku ljuwk
7 Bảy qī tsʰiɤʔ7 cat1 thất chil shichi shitsu tshit
8 Tám bā poʔ7 baat3 bát phal hachi hatsu pɛt
9 Chín jiǔ tɕiøy3 gau2 cửu kwu ku kyū kjuwX
10 Mười shí' zɤʔ8 sap6 thập sip jū←jiɸu dzyip

Transcription evidence[edit]

Although the evidence from Chinese transcriptions of foreign words is much more limited, and is similarly obscured by the mapping of foreign pronunciations onto Chinese phonology, it serves as direct evidence of a sort that is lacking in all the other types of data, since the pronunciation of the foreign languages borrowed from—especiallySanskritandGandhari—is known in great detail.[21]

For example, the nasal initials/mnŋ/were used to transcribe Sanskrit nasals in the early Tang, but later they were used for Sanskrit unaspirated voiced initials/bdɡ/,suggesting that they had becomeprenasalized stops[ᵐb][ⁿd][ᵑɡ]in some northwestern Chinese dialects.[22][23]

Methodology[edit]

Bernhard Karlgren

The rime dictionaries and rime tables yield phonological categories, but with little hint of what sounds they represent.[24] At the end of the 19th century, European students of Chinese sought to solve this problem by applying the methods ofhistorical linguisticsthat had been used in reconstructingProto-Indo-European. Volpicelli (1896) and Schaank (1897) compared the rime tables at the front of theKangxi Dictionarywith modern pronunciations in several varieties, but had little knowledge of linguistics.[25]

Bernhard Karlgren,trained in transcription of Swedish dialects, carried out the first systematic survey of modern varieties of Chinese. He used the oldest known rime tables as descriptions of the sounds of the rime dictionaries, and also studied theGuangyun,at that time the oldest known rime dictionary.[26]Unaware of Chen Li's study, he repeated the analysis of thefanqierequired to identify the initials and finals of the dictionary. He believed that the resulting categories reflected the speech standard of the capitalChang'anof theSuiandTang dynasties.He interpreted the many distinctions as anarrow transcriptionof the precise sounds of this language, which he sought to reconstruct by treating the Sino-Xenic and modern dialect pronunciations as reflexes of theQieyuncategories. A small number ofQieyuncategories were not distinguished in any of the surviving pronunciations, and Karlgren assigned them identical reconstructions.[27]

Karlgren's transcription involved a large number of consonants and vowels, many of them very unevenly distributed. Accepting Karlgren's reconstruction as a description of medieval speech,Chao Yuen RenandSamuel E. Martinanalysed its contrasts to extract aphonemicdescription.[28]Hugh M. Stimsonused a simplified version of Martin's system as an approximate indication of the pronunciation of Tang poetry.[24]Karlgren himself viewed phonemic analysis as a detrimental "craze".[29]

Older versions of the rime dictionaries and rime tables came to light over the first half of the 20th century, and were used by such linguists asWang Li,Dong TongheandLi Rongin their own reconstructions.[28]Edwin Pulleyblankargued that the systems of theQieyunand the rime tables should be reconstructed as two separate (but related) systems, which he called Early and Late Middle Chinese, respectively. He further argued that his Late Middle Chinese reflected the standard language of the late Tang dynasty.[30][31][32]

The preface of theQieyunrecovered in 1947 indicates that it records a compromise between northern and southern reading and poetic traditions from the lateNorthern and Southern dynastiesperiod (adiasystem).[33]Most linguists now believe that no single dialect contained all the distinctions recorded, but that each distinction did occur somewhere.[6]Several scholars have compared theQieyunsystem to cross-dialectal descriptions of English pronunciations, such asJohn C. Wells'slexical sets,or the notation used in some dictionaries. For example, the words "trap", "bath", "palm", "lot", "cloth" and "thought" contain four different vowels inReceived Pronunciationand three inGeneral American;these pronunciations and others can be specified in terms of these six cases.[34][35]

Although theQieyunsystem is no longer viewed as describing a single form of speech, linguists argue that this enhances its value in reconstructing earlier forms of Chinese, just as a cross-dialectal description of English pronunciations contains more information about earlier forms of English than any single modern form.[34]The emphasis has shifted from precisephonesto the structure of thephonologicalsystem.Li Fang-Kuei,as a prelude to his reconstruction ofOld Chinese,produced arevision of Karlgren's notation,adding new notations for the few categories not distinguished by Karlgren, without assigning them pronunciations.[36] This notation is still widely used, but its symbols, based onJohan August Lundell'sSwedish Dialect Alphabet,differ from the familiarInternational Phonetic Alphabet.To remedy this,William H. Baxterproducedhis own notationfor theQieyunand rime table categories for use in his reconstruction of Old Chinese.[37][c]

All reconstructions of Middle Chinese since Karlgren have followed his approach of beginning with the categories extracted from the rime dictionaries and tables, and using dialect and Sino-Xenic data (and in some cases transcription data) in a subsidiary role to fill in sound values for these categories.[19]Jerry NormanandW. South Coblinhave criticized this approach, arguing that viewing the dialect data through the rime dictionaries and rime tables distorts the evidence. They argue for a full application of thecomparative methodto the modern varieties, supplemented by systematic use of transcription data.[39]

Phonology[edit]

Traditional Chinese syllable structure

The traditional analysis of the Chinesesyllable,derived from thefanqiemethod, is into an initial consonant, or "initial", (shēngmǔThanh mẫu) and a final (yùnmǔVận mẫu). Modern linguists subdivide the final into an optional "medial" glide (yùntóuNguyên âm đầu), a main vowel or "nucleus" (yùnfùNguyên âm chính) and an optional final consonant or "coda" (yùnwěiNguyên âm cuối). Most reconstructions of Middle Chinese include the glides/j/and/w/,as well as a combination/jw/,but many also include vocalic "glides" such as/i̯/in a diphthong/i̯e/.Final consonants/j/,/w/,/m/,/n/,/ŋ/,/p/,/t/and/k/are widely accepted, sometimes with additional codas such as/wk/or/wŋ/.[40]Rhyming syllables in theQieyunare assumed to have the same nuclear vowel and coda, but often have different medials.[41]

Middle Chinese reconstructions by different modern linguists vary.[42]These differences are minor and fairly uncontroversial in terms of consonants; however, there is a more significant difference as to the vowels. The most widely used transcriptions areLi Fang-Kuei's modification of Karlgren's reconstructionandWilliam Baxter's typeable notation.

Initials[edit]

The preface of theYunjingidentifies a traditional set of36 initials,each named with an exemplary character. An earlier version comprising 30 initials is known from fragments among theDunhuang manuscripts.In contrast, identifying the initials of theQieyunrequired a painstaking analysis offanqierelationships across the whole dictionary, a task first undertaken by the Cantonese scholarChen Liin 1842 and refined by others since. This analysis revealed a slightly different set of initials from the traditional set. Moreover, most scholars believe that some distinctions among the 36 initials were no longer current at the time of the rime tables, but were retained under the influence of the earlier dictionaries.[43]

Early Middle Chinese (EMC) had three types of stops: voiced, voiceless, and voiceless aspirated. There were five series ofcoronalobstruents,with a three-way distinction betweendental(oralveolar),retroflexandpalatalamongfricativesandaffricates,and a two-way dental/retroflex distinction amongstop consonants.The following table shows the initials of Early Middle Chinese, with their traditional names and approximate values:

Early Middle Chinese initials[44]
Stopsandaffricates Nasals Fricatives Approximants
Tenuis Aspirate Voiced Tenuis Voiced
Labials Giúpp Bàngpʰ Cũngb Minhm
Dentals[d] Đoant Thấutʰ Địnhd Bùnn
Retroflex stops[e] Biếtʈ Triệtʈʰ Trừngɖ Nươngɳ
Lateral Tớil
Dental sibilants Tinhts Thanhtsʰ Từdz Tâms Tàz
Retroflex sibilants Trangʈʂ Sơʈʂʰ Sùngɖʐ Sinhʂ Chờʐ[f]
Palatals[g] Chươngtɕ Xươngtɕʰ Thiềndʑ[h] Ngàyɲ Thưɕ Thuyềnʑ[h] Lấyj[i]
Velars Thấyk Khêkʰ Đànɡ Nghiŋ
Laryngeals[j] Ảnhʔ Hiểux Hộp/Vânɣ[i]

Old Chinesehad a simpler system with no palatal or retroflex consonants; the more complex system of EMC is thought to have arisen from a combination of Old Chinese obstruents with a following/r/and/or/j/.[52]

Bernhard Karlgrendeveloped thefirst modern reconstruction of Middle Chinese.The main differences between Karlgren and newer reconstructions of the initials are:

  • The reversal of/ʑ/and/dʑ/.Karlgren based his reconstruction on theSong dynastyrime tables.However, because of mergers between these two sounds between Early and Late Middle Chinese, the Chinese phonologists who created the rime tables could rely only on tradition to tell what the respective values of these two consonants were; evidently they were accidentally reversed at one stage.
  • Karlgren also assumed that the EMCretroflexstops were actuallypalatalstops based on their tendency to co-occur with front vowels and/j/,but this view is no longer held.
  • Karlgren assumed that voiced consonants were actuallybreathy voiced.This is now assumed only for LMC, not EMC.

Other sources from around the same time as theQieyunreveal a slightly different system, which is believed to reflect southern pronunciation. In this system, the voiced fricatives/z/and/ʐ/are not distinguished from the voiced affricates/dz/and/ɖʐ/,respectively, and the retroflex stops are not distinguished from the dental stops.[53]

Several changes occurred between the time of theQieyunand the rime tables:

  • Palatal sibilants merged with retroflex sibilants.[54]
  • /ʐ/merged with/ɖʐ/(hence reflecting four separate EMC phonemes).
  • The palatal nasal/ɲ/also became retroflex, but turned into a new phoneme/r/rather than merging with any existing phoneme.
  • The palatal allophone of/ɣ/(Vân) merged with/j/(Lấy) as a single laryngeal initial/j/(Dụ).[50]
  • A new series of labiodentals emerged from labials in certain environments, typically where both fronting and rounding occurred (e.g./j/plus a back vowel in William Baxter's reconstruction, or afront rounded vowelin Chan's reconstruction). However, modernMindialects retain bilabial initials in such words, while modernHakkadialects preserve them in some common words.[55]
  • Voicedobstruentsgained phoneticbreathy voice(still reflected in theWu Chinesevarieties).

The following table shows a representative account of the initials of Late Middle Chinese.

Late Middle Chinese initials[56]
Stopsandaffricates Sonorants Fricatives Approximants
Tenuis Aspirate Breathy voiced Tenuis Breathy
Labial stops Giúpp Bàngpʰ Cũngpɦ Minhm
Labial fricatives Phif Đắpf[k] Phụngfɦ Hơiʋ[l]
Dental stops Đoant Thấutʰ Địnhtɦ Bùnn
Retroflex stops Biếtʈ Triệtʈʰ Trừngʈɦ Nươngɳ[m]
Lateral Tớil
Dental sibilants Tinhts Thanhtsʰ Từtsɦ Tâms Tàsɦ
Retroflex sibilants Chiếuʈʂ Xuyênʈʂʰ Sàng(ʈ)ʂɦ[n] Ngàyɻ[o] Thẩmʂ Thiềnʂɦ
Velars Thấyk Khêkʰ Đànkɦ Nghiŋ
Laryngeals Ảnhʔ Hiểux Hộpxɦ Dụj

The voicing distinction is retained in modernWuandOld Xiangdialects, but has disappeared from other varieties. In Min dialects the retroflex dentals are represented with the dentals, while elsewhere they have merged with the retroflex sibilants. In the south these have also merged with the dental sibilants, but the distinction is retained in mostMandarindialects. The palatal series of modern Mandarin dialects, resulting from a merger of palatal allophones of dental sibilants and velars, is a much more recent development, unconnected with the earlier palatal consonants.[63]

Finals[edit]

Main article:Middle Chinese finals

The remainder of a syllable after the initial consonant is the final, represented in the Qieyun by several equivalent secondfanqiespellers. Each final is contained within a single rhyme class, but a rhyme class may contain between one and four finals. Finals are usually analysed as consisting of an optional medial, either asemivowel,reduced vowel or some combination of these, a vowel, an optional final consonant and a tone. Their reconstruction is much more difficult than the initials due to the combination of multiple phonemes into a single class.[64]

The generally accepted final consonants are semivowels/j/and/w/,nasals/m/,/n/and/ŋ/,and stops/p/,/t/and/k/.Some authors also propose codas/wŋ/and/wk/,based on the separate treatment of certain rhyme classes in the dictionaries. Finals with vocalic and nasal codas may have one of threetones,named level, rising and departing. Finals with stop codas are distributed in the same way as corresponding nasal finals, and are described as theirentering tonecounterparts.[65]

There is much less agreement regarding the medials and vowels. It is generally agreed that "closed" finals had a rounded glide/w/or vowel/u/,and that the vowels in "outer" finals were more open than those in "inner" finals. The interpretation of the "divisions" is more controversial. Three classes ofQieyunfinals occur exclusively in the first, second or fourth rows of the rime tables, respectively, and have thus been labelled finals of divisions I, II and IV. The remaining finals are labelled division-III finals because they occur in the third row, but they may also occur in the second or fourth rows for some initials. Most linguists agree that division-III finals contained a/j/medial and that division-I finals had no such medial, but further details vary between reconstructions. To account for the many rhyme classes distinguished by theQieyun,Karlgren proposed 16 vowels and 4 medials. Later scholars have proposed numerous variations.[66]

Tones[edit]

See also:Four tones (Middle Chinese)

The four tones of Middle Chinese were first listed byShen Yuec. 500 AD.[67]The first three, the "even" or "level", "rising" and "departing" tones, occur in open syllables and syllables ending withnasal consonants.The remaining syllables, ending instop consonants,were described as the "entering"tone counterparts of syllables ending with the corresponding nasals.[68]TheQieyunand its successors were organized around these categories, with two volumes for the even tone, which had the most words, and one volume each for the other tones.[69]

Karlgren interpreted the names of the first three tones literally as level, rising and falling pitch contours, respectively.[68]However, the pitch contours of modern reflexes of these categories vary so widely that it is impossible to reconstruct Middle Chinese contours.[70]The oldest known description of the tones is found in a Song dynasty quotation from the early 9th centuryYuanhe YunpuNguyên cùng vận phổ(no longer extant): "Level tone is sad and stable. Rising tone is strident and rising. Departing tone is clear and distant. Entering tone is straight and abrupt."[p]In 880, the Japanese monk Annen described the even tone as "straight and low", the rising tone as "straight and high", and the departing tone as "slightly drawn out".[q]

The tone system of Middle Chinese is strikingly similar to those of its neighbours in theMainland Southeast Asia linguistic area—proto-Hmong–Mien,proto-Taiand earlyVietnamese—none of which is genetically related to Chinese. Moreover, the earliest strata of loans display a regular correspondence between tonal categories in the different languages.[72]In 1954,André-Georges Haudricourtshowed that Vietnamese counterparts of the rising and departing tones corresponded to final/ʔ/and/s/,respectively, in other (atonal)Austroasiatic languages.He thus argued that the Austroasiatic proto-language had been atonal, and that the development of tones in Vietnamese had been conditioned by these consonants, which had subsequently disappeared, a process now known astonogenesis.Haudricourt further proposed that tone in the other languages, including Middle Chinese, had a similar origin. Other scholars have since uncovered transcriptional and other evidence for these consonants in early forms of Chinese, and many linguists now believe thatOld Chinesewas atonal.[73]

Around the end of the first millennium AD, Middle Chinese and the southeast Asian languages experienced aphonemic splitof their tone categories. Syllables with voiced initials tended to be pronounced with a lower pitch, and by the lateTang dynasty,each of the tones had split into two registers conditioned by the initials, known as the "upper" and "lower". When voicing was lost in most varieties (except in theWuandOld Xianggroups and someGandialects), this distinction became phonemic, yielding up to eight tonal categories, with a six-way contrast in unchecked syllables and a two-way contrast in checked syllables.Cantonesemaintains these tones and has developed an additional distinction in checked syllables, resulting in a total of nine tonal categories. However, most varieties have fewer tonal distinctions. For example, in Mandarin dialects the lower rising category merged with the departing category to form the modern falling tone, leaving a system of four tones. Furthermore, final stop consonants disappeared in most Mandarin dialects, and such syllables were reassigned to one of the other four tones.[74]

Changes from Old to Modern Chinese[edit]

Main article:Historical Chinese phonology

Middle Chinese had a structure similar to many modern varieties, especially conservative ones like Cantonese, with largely monosyllabic words, little or no derivational morphology, three tones, and a syllable structure consisting of initial consonant, glide, main vowel and final consonant, with a large number of initial consonants and a fairly small number of final consonants. Without counting the glide, no clusters could occur at the beginning or end of a syllable.

Old Chinese,on the other hand, had a significantly different structure. There were no tones, a smaller imbalance between possible initial and final consonants, and many initial and final clusters. There was a well-developed system of derivational and possibly inflectional morphology, formed using consonants added onto the beginning or end of a syllable. The system is similar to the system reconstructed forProto-Sino-Tibetanand still visible, for example, inClassical Tibetan;it is also largely similar to the system that occurs in the more conservativeAustroasiatic languages,such as modernKhmer.

The main changes leading to the modern varieties have been a reduction in the number of consonants and vowels and a corresponding increase in the number of tones (typically through a Pan-East-Asiatic tone split that doubled the number of tones and eliminated the distinction between voiced and unvoiced consonants). That has led to a gradual decrease in the number of possible syllables.Standard Mandarinhas only about 1,300 possible syllables, and many othervarieties of Chineseeven fewer (for example, modernShanghainesehas been reported to have only about 700 syllables). The result in Mandarin, for example, has been the proliferation of the number of two-syllable compound words, which have steadily replaced former monosyllabic words; most words in Standard Mandarin now have two syllables.

Grammar[edit]

Further information:Chinese grammar

The extensive surviving body of Middle Chinese (MC) literature of various types provides much source material for the study of MC grammar. Due to the lack ofmorphologicaldevelopment, grammatical analysis of MC tends to focus on the nature and meanings of the individual words themselves and thesyntactic rulesby which their arrangement together in sentences communicates meaning.[75]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^Karlgren used theFrenchspelling "rime" in his English-language writing, and this practice has been followed by several other authors.[4]
  2. ^Middle Chinese forms are given inBaxter's transcription,in which-Xand-Hdenote the rising and departing tones respectively.
  3. ^By convention, Middle Chinese reconstructions are shown without an asterisk, while Old Chinese reconstructions are almost always shown preceded by an asterisk.[38]
  4. ^It is not clear whether these had analveolarordentalarticulation. They are mostly alveolar in modern Chinese varieties.[45]
  5. ^Karlgren reconstructed these as palatal stops, but most scholars now believe they were retroflex stops.[46]
  6. ^Theʐinitial occurs in only two wordsChờandLyin theQieyun,and is merged withɖʐin theGuangyun.It is omitted in many reconstructions, and has no standard Chinese name.[47]
  7. ^The retroflex and palatal sibilants were treated as a single series in the rime tables. Chen Li was the first to realize (in 1842) that they were distinguished in theQieyun.[48]
  8. ^abThe initialsThiềnandThuyềnare reversed from their positions in the rime tables, which are believed to have confused them.[49]
  9. ^abIn the rime tables, the palatal allophone ofɣ(Vân) is combined withj(Lấy) as a single laryngeal initialDụ.However in theQieyunsystemjpatterns with the palatals.[50]
  10. ^The point of articulation of the fricatives is not clear, and varies between the modern varieties.[51]
  11. ^This initial was probably indistinguishable fromPhiat the LMC stage, but was retained to record its origin from a differentQieyuninitial.[57]A distinction between[f]and[fʰ]would be unusual, but the two initials might have been distinguished at an earlier phase as affricates[pf]and[pfʰ].[58]
  12. ^This initial becomes[w]in Mandarin dialects and[v]or[m]in some southern dialects.[59]
  13. ^This initial, which was not included in the lists of 30 initials in the Dunhuang fragments, later merged withn.[57]
  14. ^This initial was not included in the lists of 30 initials in the Dunhuang fragments, and was probably not phonemically distinct fromThiềnʂɦby that time.[60]
  15. ^This initial was derived from the EMC palatal nasal.[61]In northern dialects it has become[ʐ](or[ɻ]), while southern dialects have[j],[z],[ɲ],or[n].[62]
  16. ^“Thanh bằng ai mà an, thượng thanh lệ mà cử, đi thanh thanh mà xa, thanh nhập thẳng mà xúc”,translated inTing (1996,p. 152)
  17. ^The word translated "straight" (Thẳngzhí) could mean level or rising with a constant slope.[71]

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^"A Brief History of the Chinese Language II: From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese Phonetic System".Routledge & CRC Press.
  2. ^Norman (1988),pp. 24–41.
  3. ^Coblin (2003),p. 379.
  4. ^Branner (2006a),p. 2.
  5. ^Norman (1988),p. 25.
  6. ^abNorman (1988),pp. 24–25.
  7. ^Baxter (1992),pp. 33–35.
  8. ^Pulleyblank (1984),pp. 142–143.
  9. ^Baxter & Sagart (2014),p. 10.
  10. ^Pulleyblank (1984),p. 136.
  11. ^Norman (1988),p. 27.
  12. ^Pulleyblank (1984),pp. 78, 142–143.
  13. ^Norman (1988),pp. 29–30.
  14. ^abNorman (1988),pp. 31–32.
  15. ^Baxter (1992),p. 43.
  16. ^Norman (1988),pp. 30–31.
  17. ^Branner (2006a),pp. 15, 32–34.
  18. ^Norman (1988),p. 28.
  19. ^abNorman (1988),p. 34–37.
  20. ^Miller (1967),p. 336.
  21. ^Pulleyblank (1984),p. 147.
  22. ^Malmqvist (2010),p. 300.
  23. ^Pulleyblank (1984),p. 163.
  24. ^abStimson (1976),p. 1.
  25. ^Norman (1988),pp. 32, 34.
  26. ^Ramsey (1987),pp. 126–131.
  27. ^Norman (1988),pp. 34–39.
  28. ^abNorman (1988),p. 39.
  29. ^Ramsey (1987),p. 132.
  30. ^Pulleyblank (1970),p. 204.
  31. ^Pulleyblank (1971).
  32. ^Pulleyblank (1984),p. xiv.
  33. ^Pulleyblank (1984),p. 134.
  34. ^abBaxter (1992),p. 37.
  35. ^Chan (2004),pp. 144–146.
  36. ^Li (1974–1975),p. 224.
  37. ^Baxter (1992),pp. 27–32.
  38. ^Baxter (1992),p. 16.
  39. ^Norman & Coblin (1995).
  40. ^Norman (1988),pp. 27–28.
  41. ^Baxter (1992),pp. 34, 814.
  42. ^Branner (2006b),pp. 266–269.
  43. ^Baxter (1992),pp. 43, 45–59.
  44. ^Baxter (1992),pp. 45–59.
  45. ^Baxter (1992),p. 49.
  46. ^Baxter (1992),p. 50.
  47. ^Baxter (1992),pp. 56–57, 206.
  48. ^Baxter (1992),pp. 54–55.
  49. ^Baxter (1992),pp. 52–54.
  50. ^abBaxter (1992),pp. 55–56, 59.
  51. ^Baxter (1992),p. 58.
  52. ^Baxter (1992),pp. 177–179.
  53. ^Pulleyblank (1984),p. 144.
  54. ^Baxter (1992),p. 53.
  55. ^Baxter (1992),pp. 46–48.
  56. ^Pulleyblank (1991),p. 10.
  57. ^abPulleyblank (1984),p. 69.
  58. ^Baxter (1992),p. 48.
  59. ^Norman (2006),p. 234.
  60. ^Pulleyblank (1970),pp. 222–223.
  61. ^Pulleyblank (1984),p. 66.
  62. ^Norman (2006),pp. 236–237.
  63. ^Baxter (1992),pp. 45–46, 49–55.
  64. ^Norman (1988),pp. 36–38.
  65. ^Baxter (1992),pp. 61–63.
  66. ^Norman (1988),pp. 31–32, 37–39.
  67. ^Baxter (1992),p. 303.
  68. ^abNorman (1988),p. 52.
  69. ^Ramsey (1987),p. 118.
  70. ^Norman (1988),p. 53.
  71. ^Mei (1970),pp. 91, 93.
  72. ^Norman (1988),pp. 54–55.
  73. ^Norman (1988),pp. 54–57.
  74. ^Norman (1988),pp. 52–54.
  75. ^Stimson (1976),p. 9.

Works cited[edit]

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

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