Readers 读者
Contrastive phonation in Upper Donggu Horpa (in Chinese)
上东谷霍尔语的发声态对立 (中文文章）
Jackson T.-S. Sun 孙天心 Tian Qianzi; 田阡子; Chenhao Chiu 邱振豪
Abstract 摘要
Horpic denotes a cluster of little-explored languages under the Rgyalrongic subgroup of Qiangic in Sino-Tibetan. Upper Donggu, spoken in Rongbrag County of Dkarmdzes Prefecture, is a previously unknown dialect of Central Horpa, a major language within Horpic. Upper Donggu makes a phonemic distinction between modal and slack phonation. This remarkable feature not only contrasts lexical meanings, but also plays a role in verb-stem and other morphological formations. Sorting out the origins of slack phonation in Upper Donggu is still a daunting task, but partial correspondences in vocabulary and inflectional morphology can be established between Upper Donggu slack syllables and syllables in other Central Horpa varieties bearing low tone or voiceless aspirated fricative onsets. This suggests that phonation in Upper Donggu is a conservative feature that provides valuable clues to the origin of contrastive tone and fricative aspiration in Horpic, and also to the internal ramifications of this important Rgyalrongic subgroup.
Subject Keywords 主题词
Rgyalrongic subgroup 嘉戎语组 Horpic cluster 霍尔语群 Phonation type 发声态 Slack voice 弛声 Phonological alternation 音韵交替 Tonogenesis 声调起源
Journal of Chinese Linguistics vol.45, no.1 (June 2017): 1-20
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