Linguistic diffusion of Chinese tones
汉语声调的扩散现象
Mantaro J. Hashimoto 桥本万太郎
Abstract 摘要
By projecting tone values of modern Chinese dialects spoken in the so-called Central Plains, we became aware that the tonal features projected there reflect a much longer history of the Chinese language than the segmental features do. For instance, the outermost waves could be related to the tone values reconstituted for Tang Chinese around the 9th or 10th century AD, and the second waves to the system reflected in the major source of information on Old Mandarin phonology around the 14th century, while none of this kind survives in the segmental part of modern northern Chinese phonology. Because of the seeming susceptibility to change of syllabic intonations (which suggests less trace of older features than in the case of segments), involvement of Altaic speaakers in the development of northern Chinese can be an explanation for this extraordinary phenomenon.
Journal of Chinese Linguistics volume 11 (ISSN 0091-3723)
Copyright © 1983 Journal of Chinese Linguistices. All rights reserved.