An Outline of Mandarin Phonetics
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An Outline of Mandarin Phonetics Francis D. M. D ow Faculty of Asian Studies in association w ith the Australian National University Press Canberra 1972 This book was published by ANU Press between 1965–1991. This republication is part of the digitisation project being carried out by Scholarly Information Services/Library and ANU Press. This project aims to make past scholarly works published by The Australian National University available to a global audience under its open-access policy. An Outline of Mandarin Phonetics Oriental Monograph Series No. 10 PLEA&g RETiJkfti TO EDrroRIAL DEPARTMENT jM IM M HüTlOyi imiM ill olS-(f 0 2- ■ f r u - ' 1 0 Faculty of Asian Studies: Oriental Monograph Series These monographs are a continuing series, on the languages, cultures, and history of China, Japan, India, Indonesia, and continental Southeast Asia. 1. A.H. Johns : The Gift Addressed to the Spirit o f the Prophet (1965) 2. H.H. Dubs (compiled by Rafe de Crespigny) : Official Titles o f the Former Han Dynasty (1967) 3. H.H.E. Loofs : Elements o f the Megalithic Complex in South east Asia : An annotated bibliography (1967) 4. A.L. Basham (ed.) : The Papers on the Date o f Kaniska (1969) 5. A. Yuyama : A bibliography o f the Sanskrit Texts o f the Saddharmapundarikasutra (1970) 6. I. de Rachewiltz and M. Nakano : Index to Biographical Material in Chin and Yuan Literary \Yorks (1970) 7. Miyoko Nakano : A Phonological Study in the Phags-pa Script and the Meng-ku Tzu-yün (1971) 8. K.H.J. Gardiner : The Early History o f Korea (1969) 9. R. de Crespigny : The Last o f the Han (1969) 10. Frances D. M. Dow : Mandarin Phonetics. 2nd Edition (forthcoming) 11. D.N. Lorenzen : The Kdpdlikas and Kälämukhas : Two Lost Saivite Sects (forthcoming) An Outline of Mandarin Phonetics Francis D. M. D o w Faculty of Asian Studies in association with the Australian National University Press Canberra 1972 First published 1970 Second edition 197'- c Francis D.M. Dow This book is copyright. Apart From any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism, or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher. Printed in Australia by Southwood Press Registered at the General Post Office, Sydney, for transmission by post as a book National Library of Australia card and ISBN 0 7081 0168 2 Library of Congress Catalog card no. ^ ^ - 1 ^ 2 2 ^ 6 PREFACE It is a commonplace in modern linguistics that the spoken language is primary and that the written language is derived, the former being not only an important means to proficiency in reading, but a respectable end in itself. An understanding of the spoken language is more immediately useful than a knowledge of the written language. Phonetics is an essential subject in the study of spoken language, and phonetic transcription serves as a basic tool in speech analysis both for those who investigate their native languages and for those who wish to learn a foreign language. This book is written to meet these purposes. On the basis of the knowledge of general phonetics and English phonetics learnt in Europe, I wrote this book after I had started teaching Chinese at the Australian National University in 1967* I should like to thank Messrs. C. Court and J. Harris of the Department of Linguistics, School of General Studies, for their inspiration and help in many ways at the earlier stage. I am grateful to my English teacher, Mr D. Morgan, for reading through my manuscript. My sincere thanks are particularly due to Professor Y.R. Chao of the University of California for his teaching and advice by correspondence. Although he was extremely busy with his own work, he went through the final draft of my manuscript, kindly and patiently correcting errors and furnishing me with a number of valuable points. As I have been mostly teaching English-speaking people, some sounds in this book are only compared with those in Received English; they are occasionally compared with those in some Mandarin dialects, Chinese dialects and Peking opera. Words which have sounds difficult for both foreign learners and non-Mandarin speaking Chinese are particularly selected for practice. For the purpose of the accurate comparison of different sounds in different languages and dialects, the articulatory system is rather detailed in descript ion. Due to the lack of phonetic symbols, some easily v typed marks are used in appendix I and II. No tone marks of alternation are used except for those over yi (one). I am grateful to Professor S.A. Wurm of the Department of Linguistics, Institute of Advanced Studies, for lending me his typit elements and his valuable suggestions about the arrangement of appendix I and II. I would like finally to express my thanks to Miss J. Wildash and Mrs R. Speight who typed the manuscript and helped with the checking. Australian National University July 1970 Francis D.M. Dow vi Preface v Spelling Guide xvi 1. Speech Organs and the Production of Speech-sounds 1 1.1 Respiratory System 1 1.2 Phonetory System 3 1.3 Articulatory System 5 1.4 Articulators in Connection with the Production of Speech-sounds 6 1.5 1*5 A Brief Statement of the Process of Sound-production 12 2. Secondary Features 13 2.1 Aspiration 13 2.2 V-o ice 1 4 2.3 Nasalization 14 3. Consonants 16 3.1 General Survey 16 3.2 Consonants Classified in Terms of Manner of Articulation 17 3»2a Non-continuants 18 Stops 3•2b Continuants 19 3.2b.1 Nasal 19 3•2b.2 Oral 21 Fricatives 21 Resonants 22 Flaps and Trills 23 Affricates vii 4. Consonants (initials) in Mandarin Chinese classified According to Place of Articul- at ion 24 4.1 General Survey 24 4.2 Labials 25 [b] and [ph] 25 M 27 [f] 28 4.3 Dental Sibilants 29 [dz] and [tsh] 29 [s] 31 4.4 Alveolars 32 [d] and [th] 33 [n] 34 [1] 3 6 4.5 Retroflexes 37 [dz] and [tsh] 37 [s ] and [z] 4o A Comparison between these Two Sounds and some English Sounds 42 4.6 Prepalatals 44 [dz] and [tch] 45 [c] 48 4.7 Sharper and Flatter Sounds 49 -3- 00 Velars 50 [ g ] and [ kh ] 50 [ ] 52 [ ] 53 4.9 Summary 54 viii 5. Zero Initials 56 5.1 General Survey 56 5.2 Zero before Open Finals 56 5- 3 Zero before Spread Finals 57 5.4 Zero before Rounded Finals 47 5.5 Zero before Inner-rounded Finals 57 6 . Semi-vowels 58 6 .1 General Survey 58 6.2 [j] 59 6- 3 [w/ ] 60 6.4 [ ] 61 7. Vowels 62 7.1 General Survey 62 7.2 Vowels in Mandarin Chinese 64 7.2a Vowels 64 7.2b Neutral Vowels 65 8. Compound Vowels 66 8.1 General Survey 66 8.2 Diphthongs 66 8.2a Falling (Descending) Dipthongs 67 [ ] 67 t ] 68 [ e ] 68 [ o ] 68 8.2b Rising (Ascending) Dipthongs 69 [ ] 69 [i e ] 69 [ ] 70 - ix - [ ] 70 [y e ] 72 8.3 Triphthongs 72 Finals 73 9.1 Open Finals 74 9.1a / /- Group 74 [ ] 74 [ ] 75(see 67) [an] 75 [ ] 75 [ ] 75(see 68) 9.1b / /- Group 75 [ ] 75 [e ] 76(see 68) [ n] 76 [ ] 77 [o ] 77(s ee 6 8 - 6 9 ) 9.2 Spread Finals 77 9.2a / z/z/ 77 [*] 77 [»] 78 9.2b /i/ and /i/ + / /- Group 78 [i] 78 [ ] 78(see 69) [ ] 79 [ ] 79 [ ] 79(see 7 2 ) X 9 .2c /i/ + / /- Group 79 [IE] 79(see 69-70) [in] and [i ] 79 [ o ] 79(see 72) 9-3 Rounded Finals 80 9.3a /u/ and /u/ + / /- Group 80 [u] 80 [ ] 80(see 7 0 ) [ ] 80(see 72) [ an ] and [ ] 80 9.3b /u/ + / /- Group 80 [ ] 81(see 70) [ ] 81(see 72) [ n] 81 [ ] 81 9.4 Inner-rounded Finals 82 9«4a /y/ and /y/ + / /- Group 82 [y] 82 [Van] 82 9.4b /y/ + / /- Group 82 [y e ] 8 2 (see 72) [yn] 83 [Y ] 83 Retroflexed Finals (Retroflexed Vowels and Diminutive Suffixes) 84 10.1 General Survey 84 10.2 Rules of Retroflexed Finals Derived from Ordinary Finals 87 The Formation of Syllables 98 xi 12. Tones 1 02 12.1 General Survey 102 12.2 Tones Uttered in Succession 1 04 12.3 Special Tone Change 105 12.4 Difficulties for English- speaking Learners 107 13* Neutral Tones 109 13*1 General Survey 109 13*2 Grammatical and Lexical Neutral Tones 113 13*2a Grammatical Neutral Tones 114 1 . Parti cles 1 14 2. Pronouns after Verbs 1 14 3 . Complements 1 14 3.1 Directional Complements 1 14 3.2 Resultative Complements 117 4. Some Localizers 1 18 5* Reduplicated Words 119 13•2b Lexical Neutral Tones (see App.il) 142 14. Stress 121 14.1 General Survey 121 14.2 Word Stress 122 14.3 Sentence Stress 123 Appendix I 125 Words with Terminal -r Appendix II 142 Trochees Select Bibliography 1 76 Index 180 - xii - Illustrations,Tables and Lists 1. The three systems (respiratory, phonetory and articulatory) 1 2. The speech organs in the phonetory and articulatory systems 2 3» The structure of the larynx and the activities of the vocal cords 4 4. Diagrams showing aspirations 13 5. Diagrams showing the three stages (initial, hold and release) of alveolar stops in Mandarin Chinese 17 6. Table of stops 18 7. Table of nasal consonants 20 8. Table of fricatives 22 9.