Retroflex endings in Ancient Chinese
古汉语中的卷舌音尾
Mantaro J. Hashimoto 桥本万太郎

Abstract 摘要
A reconstruction of Ancient Chinese retroflex endings (syllable-final consonants) is proposed. The hypothesis is based on internal phonological evidence in Chinese. Assuming retroflex endings for the Tōng rime-group, we endeavor to account for the complete merger of the inner and the outer subgroups in this rime-group and some related phonological phenomena in Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese. Supplementary dialectal evidence justifies changes from the proposed Ancient retroflexes to velars and labials in the modern dialects. Inventories of Ancient Chinese initials and finals of our latest reconstruction are attached.