Readers 读者
Nasals and Nasalization in Xiangxiang Chinese
汉语湘乡方言的鼻辅音和元音鼻化
Ting Zeng 曾婷
Abstract 摘要
Nasal vowels are widely attested in the sound inventories of the world’s languages. It is usually assumed among phoneticians and universalists that the historical development of distinctive vowel nasalization consists of two ordered processes, i.e. vowel nasalization and nasal deletion, that is, the vowels become contextually nasalized before a nasal consonant at some stage in history; then the nasal ending is subsequently lost and vowel nasalization on the preceding vowel becomes distinctive and phonological. However, not much work has been done to reconsider or to provide phonetic evidence for or against this two-step account. For instance, the manner and motivation of the process of nasal deletion, which is generally assumed as a simple and one-step change, has not been studied in any detail. In this connection, we examine in the present study the aerodynamic characteristics of vowel nasalization in Xiangxiang Chinese, a representative of the Old Xiang Dialects of Chinese, which has a rich set of nasals, nasalized and nasal vowels (both monophthongs and diphthongs) and allows combinations of oral and nasal consonants and vowels, and discuss the implications of the current results as well as those from studies on vowel nasalization in other languages for the theories of sound change. In particular, our intention is to test the two-step account and to reconstruct the processes involved in the historical development of nasal vowels.
鼻元音在世界很多语言的语音系统中都是存在的。语音学家和普遍语法学家们一般认为，鼻化演变成为一个元音的区别性特征，经历了「元音鼻化」和「鼻辅音删减」两个先后的历史阶段，即在某个历史阶段鼻辅音韵尾前面的元音被逆向鼻化，接下来鼻辅音韵尾突然脱落，使其前面元音的鼻化成为一个区别性特征。但是，很少有研究用实证的语言数据尤其是语音数据来证明或者证伪这个「两步」假设，因为在很多情况下这个假设已经被看成理所当然。尤其是学者们普遍认为「鼻辅音韵尾脱落」是一个简单的一步到位的变化，而对于它脱落的原因、方式以及具体的过程都很少提及。汉语湘乡方言是老湘语的代表方言，它不仅有丰富的鼻辅音、鼻元音（包括鼻单元音和鼻双元音）和鼻化元音，而且允许口、鼻辅音与鼻元音的自由组合。本文试图对这个方言的元音鼻化现象进行气流分析，并结合其他学者对其它语言中相关现象的研究，来验证鼻元音历史演变的「两步」假设，并重构整个过程。
Subject Keywords 關鍵詞
Nasals 鼻辅音 Nasal vowels 鼻元音 Nasalized vowels 鼻化元音 Aerodynamic characteristic 气流特征 Historical development 历史演变 Distinctive vowel nasalization 具有区别音位作用的元音鼻化