Readers 读者
To the readers and Acknowledgment
致读者及致谢
Matthew Y Chen 陈渊泉; Xiuhong Yan 严修鸿; L.H. Wee 黄良喜
Abstract 摘要
The volume you have in hand is a gold mine of dialectological data. More importantly, it is an invitation and a challenge.
For nearly five years the authors have elicited, transcribed, sorted, and tabulated the dauntingly complicated tonal patterns of Changting, a Hakka dialect of Chinese. The fruits of our collective labor of love are set out in tabular form in Part Three.
What motivated us was far more than archival interest. We picked Changting Hakka because we realized from previous descriptions that this dialect exhibits tone sandhi phenomena that present a formidable analytical challenge for any theoretical model. In its bare essentials, the problem posed by Hakka is not unlike what one encounters in rudimentary arithmetic. The value of 2 + 3 x 4 depends on whether addition or multiplication comes first:
2 + (3 x 4) = 14
(2 + 3) x 4 = 20
Likewise, given a tonal sequence /ABC/, the phonetic form depends on whether the elementary sandhi rules operate first on AB, then on BC, or vice versa. The crux of the matter lies in the discovery of general principles that predict the order in which the elementary operations combine to produce the observed outputs. For descriptive purposes, we use the term ‘directionality’ to refer to this problem. Needless to say, the problem is magnified when more than two operations are involved, e.g. in longer tonal strings. With the advent of Optimality Theory (OT), rule ordering is no longer part of the theoretical vocabulary. In which case, how do we even begin to understand and describe Hakka tone sandhi in optimality theoretic terms?
The main body of the text is a narrative of our systematic attempt to render a satisfactory account of the Hakka facts, either in rule-based generative framework or in constraint-based OT terms. We came to the grudging conclusion that we have failed, despite our best efforts. Hence, we have decided to present a full range of Hakka data in Part Three, in the hope that others may find a better solution. We suspect that a solution that eventually succeeds will entail significant, perhaps even drastic, refashioning of the analytical tools presently available. Hakka severely tests the descriptive capacity of existing theoretical models. In short, our failure is your opportunity.
It was for this reason that we have decided to make this monograph accessible to two sets of potential readers. We endeavor to ensure that the language-specific facts are glossed, translated and made transparent to any generalists without special Sinological background. Hopefully, what we have said so far has piqued the curiosity of the generalist enough to want to find out not only where the analytical tools came up short, but also to have the full set of facts against which to test the adequacy of theoretical alternatives. However, we wish also to address the needs of a large number of specialists in Chinese dialectology by detailing in Chinese the theoretical significance of the corpus of data we have painstakingly assembled. Part One (in English) and Part Two (in Chinese) cover roughly the same material, but are not exact translations of each other; rather, they target different audiences, and are designed accordingly. For instance, the English narrative omits some details of interest mainly to Chinese dialectologists. By the same token, the Chinese text says nothing about Optimality Theory, the assumption being that any specialists who are attuned to OT-related issues are already familiar with the OT literature that exists almost entirely in English.
The narrative texts in Parts One (English) and Two (Chinese) are organized as follows: The introductory Chapter One provides the basic background information about Hakka, and describes the elementary sandhi rules that operate on two-tone windows. Chapter Two is devoted to the core problem of ‘directionality’. There we examine a number of ‘derivational constraints’ such as Temporal Sequence, Tonotactic Wellformedness, and Transparency etc. as potential predictors of the order in which the elementary sandhi rules must apply in order to produce the attested output. Chapter Three (English only) explores the analytical options OT has to offer, including Sympathy Theory.
Part Three begins with a quick reference chart to tritonal sandhi patterns as well as explanatory notes (in both English and Chinese) on how to read the tables. The rest of Part Three consists of 241 pages of tables, arranged according to syllable count, then in the traditional order of tonal categories (that hold remarkably stable across dialects), namely:
M - R - F - H - L
i.e. Mid, Rising, Falling, High and Low
The monograph ends with bibliographical references.
长江客家方言有异常丰富的连续表调，这对目前任何语言学理论的严峻挑战。近四年来，我们调查了客家长汀方言繁乱复杂的变调情况。2001年2月，我们邀请了长汀方言的早期调查者之一罗美珍来香港城市大学当任发音顾问，对长汀方言进行了为期6个月的集中调查。从收集，记音，以至整理，分类，计算，系统地记录了二字组，三字组，以及四，五字组共计一万余个词语的变调项目。我们的劳动成果罗列在本书第三部份。
长汀客家话的二字连调与其他汉语方言的连续变调大同小异，多字组的表调则以二字组规则为基础。因此，三个以上的音节组合自然引起何处先变调的问题。这个问题其实相当于一个小学算术题，例如：算式“2加3乘4”的得数，取决于先加后乘还是先乘后加：
2＋（3×4）＝14
2＋3）×4＝20
同样，三字组组合/ABC/的变调结果，也是看AB先变还是BC先变。这种基于三字组合的两个变调窗孰先孰后的预测，便足够让我们准确地推导岀多字组合的变调结果。为了方便描述，我们管这个叫“方向问题”。
本书的描写部分以生成语言学的理论框架来探讨方向问题。遗憾的是，我们经过多方面的尝试后仍没能提出有效的解决办法。于是，我们决定把几年来收集到的语料公诸于世，旨在让海内外各专家能充分地利用这些数据，修正，丰富甚至重新建构语言学理论。我们未能奏效，但希望您能成功。
本书有中，英两部分，语料也有相应的翻译注解。第一部分（英）和第二部分（中）内容相近但不尽同，是针对不同背景读者而构思的。比如，中文部分没有关于“优选论”的章节。我们猜想，对优选论有兴趣的研究者，多半都已经通晓那些几乎都是以英文出版的优选论文献。
第一章介绍长汀方言背景，以及基本的二字变调规律。第二章列岀长汀客家话连续变调中最有代表性的事实，提供多种可能的分析，并指出我们没能提出圆满解答的原因。中文部分到此为止。第三章（限英文）探讨用优选论处理方向问题的可行性。
第三部分首先提供三字组变调一览表，和关于表格符号及内容安排的说明（中英具备）。剩下的241页是语料，全部按照音节数及调类排序，即：
M[33] R[24] F[42] H[55] L[11]
阴平 阳平 上声 阴去 阳去
书末附有参考书目。
长汀方言复杂纷纭的变调背后，一定蕴藏着精深的规律。这个理念吸引着我们，也欢迎您加入！