The origins of ancient Chinese ho-kou
古汉语 ho-kou 的来源
Axel Schuessler 许思莱

Abstract 摘要
Morphological patterns studied in conjunction with phonetic series and, occasionally, Tibeto-Burman (TB) comparative data, reveal that Ancient Chinese (AnC) medial w/u (‘ho-kou’), which developed usually out of Archaic Chinese (ArC) medial w, has three different origins: (1) well known secondary ho-kou after labial initials. In many instances, this medial w established by Kargren for Archaic Chinese is nonphonemic, as if often AnC w after x- (xw- kwang). This survives only in certain environments and shows therefore no trace in words such as AnC ang ‘sheep’, for which there is now reason to reconstruct ArC lwang ( ArC mwt). Due to labial dissimilation, this ho-k’ou disappears by the Ancient Chinese period in words with labial finals (e.g. *swm > swm > sm > AnC sâm).