Structure of Hmong-Mien Languages Session #2 Phonology
Martha Ratlif 2017 LSA Institute University of Kentucky Session overview • Word/syllable structure in modern HM languages • Consonants – velars/uvulars – voiceless/voiced sonorants – plain/prenasalized stops – non-native aspects of phonology? aspirates and fricatives – secondary developments: retrofex Cs and voiced stops • Vowels – Hmongic and Mienic inventory diferences – phonemic vowel length • Sesquisyllables in Proto-Hmong-Mien and the present day Word/syllable structure in modern HM languages
The SEA “bulging monosyllable”: Proto Tibeto-Burman
(P2) (P1) Ci (G) V (:) (Cf) (s) (Matisof 1989, 2003) Proto Hmong-Mien (C) C (L/G) (i̯/u̯) (V) V (C) (Ratlif 2010:10) Maddieson classifes syllables as ‘simple’, ‘moderately complex’, ‘complex’ in WALS: – Simple: (C)V (12.5%) – Moderately complex: C(L/G)V(C) (56.5%) – Complex: (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C) (30.9%)
Most languages overall have ‘moderately complex’ syllables. Maddieson characterizes 24/34 of the SEA languages in WALS as moderately complex. Yet this misses the asymmetry of the syllable type of many SEA languages, including Hmongic languages. I would say that they constitute a fourth category: – Simple: (C)V (12.5%) – Moderately complex: C(L/G)V(C) (56.5%) – Front-loaded: (C)(C)(C)V(C)* – Complex: (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C) (30.9%) *Henderson, E. 1952 of Khmer: “monosyllables with extended onsets” Consonants
• coda consonants • velars/uvulars • voiceless/voiced sonorants • plain/prenasalized stops • aspirates and fricatives • retrofex Cs and voiced stops Vanishing coda consonants
-m -n -ŋ -p -t -ʔ (<*-k) -m -n -ŋ -p -t -m -n -ŋ -n -ŋ -ŋ Mienic languages retain fve or six codas; Hmongic languages have reduced the set to either -n and -ŋ, or just -ŋ. White Hmong initial consonants
p t ʔd ts ʈ tʃ c k q ʔ ph th ʔdh tsh ʈh tʃh ch kh qh mp nt nts ɳʈ ntʃ ɲc ŋk ɴq mph nth ntsh ɳʈh ntʃh ɲch ŋkh ɴqh hm hn hɲ ŋ m n ɲ f s ʃ ç h v ʒ hl j l A-Hmao (Shíménkǎn) initial consonants (Niederer 1998)
p t ts tl ʈ tʂ tɕ k q ʔ ph th tsh tlh ʈh tʂh tɕh kh qh b d dz dl ɖ dʐ dʑ g ɢ mp nt nts ntl ɳʈ ɳtʂ ȵtɕ ŋk ɴq mph nth ntsh ntlh ɳʈh ɳtʂh ȵtɕh ŋkh ɴqh mb nd ndz ndl ɳɖ ɳdʐ ȵdʑ ŋg ɴɢ m̥ n̥ ȵ̥ m n ɳ ȵ ŋ f s l ʂ ɕ x h v z l ʐ ʑ Iu Mien initial consonants (Purnell 2012)
p t ts c k ʔ ph th tsh ch kh b d dz ɟ g m̥ n̥ ɲ̊ ŋ̊ m n ɲ ŋ f s h l l w̥ j̥ w j Velar/uvular contrast
p t ʔd ts ʈ tʃ c k q ʔ ph th ʔth tsh ʈh tʃh ch kh qh mp nt nts ɳʈ ntʃ ɲc ŋk ɴq mph nth ntsh ɳʈh ntʃh ɲch ŋkh ɴqh m n ɲ ŋ hm hn hɲ f s ʃ ç h v ʒ l j hl Contrast exists in Hmongic languages only
E.g., White Hmong minimal pairs: ka55 ‘bug’ vs. qa55 ‘underneath’ ke24 ‘path’ vs. qe24 ‘to borrow/lend’ kɯ52 ‘valley’ vs. qɯ52 ‘snail’ . . . also kho24 ‘steady’/qho24 ‘hole’, nka33 ‘skinny’/ nqa33 ‘to carry in the hand’, etc. q/k merger in Mienic
Hmong qu1/Mien ko5’ ‘old’ Hmong qa1/Mien kaːm1 ‘sweet’ Hmong qe3/Mien ka3 ‘to borrow’ Hmong ɴqɛŋ1/Mien gaːn1 ‘thatch grass’ Yet some Hmongic uvulars are secondary
Velars in SEA have been known to “fall back” under certain conditions, thus giving rise to the velar/uvular contrast. Matisof 2003: postvelars are generally secondary developments of the TB *velar series – velars that are not followed by glides become postvelars (p. 20) Mindful of the developments in TB, Solnit (1996) proposed that HM velars might have become uvulars except before medial r and back l, and “under some other condition, perhaps involving front vowels/glides” Evidence for retraction from Chinese borrowings
價 Man. jià (< MC ka5) ‘price’, WH nqa5 甘 Man. gān (< MC kam1) ‘sweet’, WH qa1 槀 Man. gǎo (< MC khaw3) ‘withered’, WH qhua3 雞 Man. jī ( Some Hm words with q- go back to *q-, other Hm words with q- go back to *k-. Hm words with k- (<*k-) represent the special case: *k- did not retract before liquids and back rounded vowels. *q- *k- q- q- k- A Southeast Asian areal trait? Yes, according to Henderson (1965). Matisof (2003) “Postvelars are something of an areal feature in the Sinosphere, occurring in [Tibeto- Burman,] Hmong-Mien and Kam-Sui.” Esp. characteristic of the Qiangic and Loloish branches of T-B. Baxter & Sagart (2014) reconstruct a uvular/velar contrast for Old Chinese. Yet Maddiseon (WALS: Uvular Consonants) does not mention mainland SEAsia: “The great majority of the languages surveyed (80.9%) have no uvulars. Uvulars are absent from several large areas, such as the northern part of South America, the eastern part of North America, West and Central Africa, southern Asia including Indonesia and the Philippines, and the Pacifc region except for a couple of languages in New Guinea. They are also absent from most of the languages of Europe outside the Caucasus region. Uvulars are concentrated in the western part of North America and the southern part of of South America, in the Caucasus and Inner Asia as well as the far northeast of Asia. A lesser concentration occurs in eastern and southern Africa.” Voiced/voiceless sonorant contrast p t ʔd ts ʈ tʃ c k q ʔ ph th ʔth tsh ʈh tʃh ch kh qh mp nt nts ɳʈ ntʃ ɲc ŋk ɴq mph nth ntsh ɳʈh ntʃh ɲch ŋkh ɴqh m n ɲ ŋ hm hn hɲ f s ʃ ç h v ʒ l j hl Why hC- rather than C̥-? • Synchronic: In White Hmong, the voiceless sonorants are preaspirated rather than fully voiceless. • Diachronic: Because of tonal refexes, some sonorants must be reconstructed as preglottalized (*ʔC-), so there is independent evidence for pre-initial laryngeals. • Loanwords: There are several hC- loanwords from Tibeto- Burman which can be traced back to a word with an s-prefx in T-B: moon/sun/night moon/month Hmong-Mien *hlaH (2.41/4) Tibeto-Burman *s/g-la ‘moon/month’ sun/day Hmongic *hnɛŋA (2.8/22); Mienic *hnu̯ɔiA (2.8/11) Tibeto-Burman *s-nəy ‘sun’ night Hmong-Mien *hməŋH (1.8/21) Tibeto-Burman *muːŋ ‘cloudy; dark’ cf. Burmese hmuìŋ ‘very dark’ (Benedict 1972:78) T-B directive/causative/intensive *s- to slice Hmong-Mien *hlep (2.41/10) Tibeto-Burman *s-lep ‘to slice’ Yanghao l̥hei3 , Jiwei l̥ha3, Bunu ɬe3; Mien ɬɛ5, Biao to extend tongue Min ɬia5 Tibeto-Burman *s-lyak ‘to lick (causative)’ to snif at Hmong-Mien *hmji̯əmH (1.23/18) Tibeto-Burman *s-nam (tr.)/*m-nam (intr.) ‘to smell’ Prenasalized/plain stop contrast p t ʔd ts ʈ tʃ c k q ʔ ph th ʔth tsh ʈh tʃh ch kh qh mp nt nts ɳʈ ntʃ ɲc ŋk ɴq mph nth ntsh ɳʈh ntʃh ɲch ŋkh ɴqh m n ɲ ŋ hm hn hɲ f s ʃ ç h v ʒ l j hl Distribution and development *NC > NC W Hmongic languages *NC[-voice] > NC N Hmongic languages *NC[-voice] > C[-voice] E Hmongic languages *NC[+voice] > N N and E Hmongic languages *NC > C[+voice] All Mienic languages Probable ultimate source: “front-end collapse” N(V).C > N.C > NC > NC Outcomes with prenasalized voiceless stop ta3 PHM ‘long’ PH ntɯ3 *ntauX *ntæwB nte3 ntæ3a to3 PM *ʔdauB dau3 du3 Outcomes with prenasalized voiced stop zɛ2 PHM ‘ear’ PH mʐɯ2 *mbræu *mbræwA ɳtʂe2 mpʐæ2 mjo2 PM *blæwA blau2 bju2 #NCs may not only break down in understandable ways, they may also persist over hundreds of years, as in West and North Hmongic languages. Non-native? aspirates and fricatives p t ʔd ts ʈ tʃ c k q ʔ ph th ʔth tsh ʈh tʃh ch kh qh mp nt nts ɳʈ ntʃ ɲc ŋk ɴq mph nth ntsh ɳʈh ntʃh ɲch ŋkh ɴqh m n ɲ ŋ hm hn hɲ f s ʃ ç h v ʒ l j hl Aspirates: Reconstructed words with aspirated stops are not numerous. Some correspondence sets with aspirates are entirely made up of Chinese loanwords. Yet some apparently ancient HM words are aspirated: shell, daughter, fnger ring, attic, puttees. Fricatives: Only 4 fricatives can be reconstructed for Proto HM, *s-, *sj-, *c-, and *h-, and given the distribution of loanwords in the correspondence sets, only *h- feels native. Fricatives in daughter languages frequently come from africates, aspirated stops, or glides (*w- > v-). Secondary development from Cr- or Cj-: retrofex consonants p t ʔd ts ʈ tʃ c k q ʔ ph th ʔth tsh ʈh tʃh ch kh qh mp nt nts ɳʈ ntʃ ɲc ŋk ɴq mph nth ntsh ɳʈh ntʃh ɲch ŋkh ɴqh m n ɲ ŋ hm hn hɲ f s ʃ ç h v ʒ l j hl Secondary development in Iu Mien (and all other Mienic languages) from NC-: voiced stops p t ts c k ʔ ph th tsh ch kh b d dz ɟ g m̥ n̥ ɲ̊ ŋ̊ m n ɲ ŋ f s h l l w̥ j̥ w j A-Hmao (Shíménkǎn) voiced stops: not secondary p t ts thl ʈ tʂ tɕ k q ʔ ph th tsh thlh ʈh tʂh tɕh kh qh b d dz dl ɖ dʐ dʑ g ɢ mp nt nts ntl̥ ɳʈ ɳtʂ ȵtɕ ŋk ɴq mph nth ntsh ntlh ɳʈh ɳtʂh ȵtɕh ŋkh ɴqh mb nd ndz ndl ɳɖ ɳdʐ ȵdʑ ŋg ɴɢ m̥ n̥ ȵ̥ m n ɳ ȵ ŋ f s l ʂ ɕ x h v z l ʐ ʑ Vowels Given the fact that the vast majority of HM syllables have no coda consonant, a rimes inventory is usually given, following the Chinese tradition, rather than a vowels inventory (although vowels can easily enough be extracted from an inventory of rimes) • Hmongic and Mienic rime inventory diferences • phonemic vowel length White Hmong rimes i ɯ u e, eŋ [ɛ, ɛŋ] o, oŋ [ɔ, ɔŋ] a ia ua ai aɯ au Iu Mien rimes i, ip, im, it, in, iʔ, iŋ u, um, ut, un, uk, uʔ, uŋ e, ep, em, et, en, eʔ, ə, ən o, op, om, ot, on, eŋ oʔ, oŋ ɛ, ɛp, ɛt, ɛn, ɛʔ, ɛŋ a, ap, am, at, an, aʔ, ɔ, ɔp, ɔm, ɔt, ɔn, ɔʔ, aŋ ɔŋ aː, aːp, aːm, aːt, aːn, aːʔ, aːŋ Also diphthong rimes iu, ia, iaʔ, ei, eu, ɛu, əi, əu, ai, aːi, au, aːu, ui, ua, uaʔ, oi, ou, ɔi Proto-Hmong-Mien “recipe” A Hmongic onset plus a Mienic rime = a Proto-Hmong-Mien word! Problems: 1) some medial liquids only preserved in Mienic; 2) voiced stops in Mienic that do not correspond to prenasalized stops in Hmong suggest an old nasal “pre- initial” of which no trace remains in Hmongic; 3) too much rime information in Mienic: to sort it out, one must look at the mergers that took place to yield what is only a handful of rime correspondences in Hmongic. Vowel length in Mienic No Hmongic language has a vowel length contrast. On the Mienic side, Iu Mien just has a/aː contrast, but Mun shows a length contrast in every vowel. For this reason, a vowel length contrast has been reconstructed by most people for Proto- Hmong-Mien (except by Luang-Thongkum and me). Mienic Mien-Mun Dzao Min Biao Min Mien (a/a:) Mun (V/V:) Vowel length is probably due to language contact. In the linguistic area where Mienic languages are spoken, vowel length is contrastive in closed syllables in many T-K languages and in dialects of the Yue branch of Chinese. Today, Mien speakers in Thailand are in contact with vowel-length languages Standard Thai and Northern Thai. In the provinces of Hunan, Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou, Jiangxi, and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Mien and Mun speakers live among Tai-Kadai vowel- length language speakers (most notably Zhuang) and Chinese. On Hainan Island, Mun speakers are in a contact situation with speakers of two languages with contrastive vowel length, Hlai (Li) and Cantonese. Moreover, loanwords with long vowels outnumber native words with long vowels (Kosaka 2002). Inherent length variability in low vowels “internal readiness” Mien is not alone in showing a length contrast in /a/ only. This is also true of Shan, Tai Lɯ, Wuming Zhuang (Tai-Kadai), Cantonese (Sinitic), Chamic (Austronesian), and undoubtedly other languages of the area. Gordon (2002:73) “There is a well-documented tendency for low vowels to be cross-linguistically longer than high vowels … a fact typically attributed to the additional time needed for the jaw lowering involved in the production of low vowels.” Furthermore, “[i]n virtually all cases, languages without phonemic vowel length display greater durational diferences between vowels of diferent qualities.” Proposed historical development 1) No length contrasts, but low vowels show greater subphonemic variability in length (Biao Min, Dzao Min) 2) Length variability in /a/ phonologized under contact with other vowel-length languages (Mien) 3) Vowel length in /a/ extended by analogy to other vowels (Mun) Additional contributing factors 1) “The word in Highland Yao [=Mien] consists of a full syllable, which may be preceded by one or two reduced syllables. Full syllables are characterized by a system of tones, and, when preceded by reduced syllables, by relative prominence and duration. Reduced syllables have no tones, and have markedly diferent realizations depending on speed of utterance.” (Downer 1961:532) “Reduced syllables do not occur fnally, but always precede a full syllable or another reduced syllable. They [have] weaker stress and shorter duration than the following full syllables so that a strong iambic rhythm is imparted to disyllabic words …” 2) Compensatory lengthening upon loss of on-glides Sesquisyllables in Proto-Hmong-Mien and the present day • Recall modern monosyllabic word structure: (C) C (L/G) (i/u̯ )̯ (V) V (C) • But given – prenasalized stops, likely from *NV-C- – voiceless sonorants, several from *s-C- – necessary reconstruction of pre-initial elements in certain words (PHM *m-nɔk ‘bird’, cf. PAN *manuk ‘bird/chicken’) – morphological traces of ancient prefxes (next week) • It is likely that (pre-)Proto-Hmong-Mien words were either disyllabic or “sesquisyllabic” (Matisof 1973): *CV-C(V)V(C) Sesquisyllables reconstructed for other families Proto Kam-Sui (Edmondson and Yang 1988:143-44) “. . . the KS proto-language had resonant-initial lexical items with preconsonants before the root monosyllables (perhaps refective of original disyllabic or sesquisyllabic word structure) —just as in Mon- Khmer minor syllables and in Tibetan . . .” Old Chinese (Baxter & Sagart 2014:53) Root (σ) � Cpi (ə) Onset Rhyme Ci (r) V Cc (ʔ) Sesquisyllables in HM: not just in olden days • They are evident in the prosody of Iu Mien, mentioned above in connection with development of contrastive vowel length. • They are evident in the prosody of Hmongic prefx- root structures. • They are preserved in PaHng sesquisyllables that correspond to words with complex onsets in other languages, e.g. ‘dog’: – Jiwei Xong qwɯ3 Baiyun PaHng ta1-ljɔ7 – Xianjin Hmong tle3 Tan Trinh PaHng ka/ta1-ljɔ7 – Fuyuan Hmjo qleiB – Liangzi Mun klu3 Hmong-Mien C1v1C2V2C3 in areal context • Most common in Mon-Khmer (e.g., “Phnom Penh”), and to a lesser extent in Tibeto-Burman. A working defnition: (Pittayaporn 2015): – iambic stress – C1 a singleton consonant (no clusters) – v1 neutral (not contrastive) • Ways languages with sesquisyllables can vary: – Whether onset clusters allowed (if not, apparent clusters indicate presence of sesquisyllables) – If onset clusters allowed, whether a contrast exists with sesquisyllables: /trah/ vs. /t-rah/? • An alternate analysis: only monosyllables with voiced excrescent transitions and iambic disyllables (Butler 2015) For Friday Please read! Kuang, Jianjing. 2013. The tonal space of contrastive fve level tones. Phonetica 70.1-23. … and optionally Garellek et al. 2013. Voice quality and tone identifcation in White Hmong. Journal of the Acoustic Society of America 133 (2).1078-1089. Tone assignment to follow, due a week from today (7/18). References • Baxter, William H. & Laurent Sagart. 2014. Old Chinese: A New Reconstruction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. • Butler, Becky. 2015. Approaching a phonological understanding of the sesquisyllable with phonetic evidence from Khmer and Bunong. In Bernard Comrie & N. J. Enfeld (eds), Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia: The State of the Art, 443-499. Berlin: de Gruyter. • Downer, Gordon B. 1961. Phonology of the word in Highland Yao. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 24. 531–541. • Gordon, Matthew. 2002. A phonetically driven account of syllable weight. Language 78. 51–80. • Henderson, Eugénie J. A. 1965. The topography of certain phonetic and morphological characteristics of South East Asian languages. Lingua 15. 400-432. • Matisof, James A. 2003. Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman. Berkeley: University of California Press. • Pittayaporn, Pittayawat. 2015. Typologizing sesquisyllabicity. In Bernard Comrie & N. J. Enfeld (eds), Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia: The State of the Art, 500-528. Berlin: de Gruyter. • Ratlif, Martha. 2015. Word-initial prenasalization in Southeast Asia: A historical perspective. In Bernard Comrie & N. J. Enfeld (eds), Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia: The State of the Art, 31-50. Berlin: de Gruyter. • Ratlif, Martha. 2010. Hmong-Mien Language History. Canberra: Pacifc Linguistics. • Solnit, David B. 1996. Some evidence from Biao Min on the initials of Proto-Mienic (Yao) and Proto- Hmong-Mien (Miao-Yao). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 19(1). 1–18.