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The Rise of Disyllables in Old Chinese: the Role of Lianmian Words

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The Rise of Disyllables in Old Chinese: the Role of Lianmian Words City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2013 The Rise of Disyllables in Old Chinese: The Role of Lianmian Words Jian Li Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3651 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] THE RISE OF DISYLLABLES IN OLD CHINESE: THE ROLE OF LIANMIAN WORDS by JIAN LI A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2013 © 2013 JIAN LI All Rights Reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Linguistics in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date Juliette Blevins, Ph.D. Chair of Examining Committee Date Gita Martohardjono, Ph.D. Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Juliette Blevins, Ph. D Gita Martohardjono, Ph.D. William McClure, Ph.D. Outside Reader: Gopal Sukhu, Ph.D. THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT THE RISE OF DISYLLABLES IN OLD CHINESE: THE ROLE OF LIANMIAN WORDS by JIAN LI ADVISER: PROFESSOR JULIETTE BLEVINS The history of Chinese language is characterized by a clear shift from monosyllabic to disyllabic words (Wang 1980). This dissertation aims to provide a new diachronic explanation for the rise of disyllables in the history of Chinese and to demonstrate its significance for Modern Chinese prosody and lexicalization. A corpus of 300 Lianmian words in Old Chinese was compiled, including 96 Shuāngshēng words, 172 Diéyùn words and 32 Splitting-sound words. This study builds on previous morphological and phonological research on disyllables in Chinese and looks closely at detailed aspects of Old Chinese sound patterns and their evolution. Based on the analysis of sound patterns of Splitting-sound words and Dieyun words in Old Chinese, evidence from neighboring languages, statistical analysis of the development of Old Chinese, and reconstructed syllable structure, I argue that the simplification of complex onsets in Old Chinese was a central motivating factor for the rise of the earliest disyllabic forms – Splitting-sound words. Monosyllabic words with historic initial CL clusters (L a liquid), undergo fission, surfacing as disyllables where the first syllable has the simple C onset and the second the L onset. The occurrence of the liquid in the second syllable onset preserves consonant identity, which would iv otherwise be lost in the onset simplification process. Generalization of this process soon gave rise to another type of mono-morphemic disyllable – Diéyùn. Once onset simplification was complete, around Late Old Chinese to Early Middle Chinese period, phonological motivation for syllabic fission disappeared. Mono-morphemic disyllables lost their productivity at this point. The disyllabic template they defined was preserved, giving rise to productive formation of disyllabic compounds. This word-formation process appears to be responsible for the dominance of disyllables in many modern Chinese languages spoken today. This diachronic phonological research accounts for issues that previous studies fail to address. It reveals the relation between the rise of disyllables and the creation of Lianmian words, the relation between the creation of Lianmian words and the simplification of Old Chinese phonology. It enriches our understanding of the role of Lianmian words and of Old Chinese phonological development in Chinese historical disyllabicity. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my greatest gratitude to the people who have helped and supported me throughout my five-year doctoral study. First of all, I am grateful to my advisor, Dr. Juliette Blevins, for her continuous and dedicated support of this research, from initial advice and contacts in the early stages of conceptual inception and through ongoing advice and encouragement to its completion as a doctoral dissertation. She introduced me to research of historical phonology. I have learned from her not only linguistics, but also devotion to academics and dedication to students. What’s more, she sets a good example for me as to how to strike a balance between family life and academic work, leaving a life-long influence on me. I am also deeply indebted to my other committee members, Dr. Gita Martohardjono and Dr. William McClure. Dr. Gita Martohardjono provided me with helpful comments on and suggestions for the data collection of secret languages in Modern Chinese. Dr. William McClure guided me in critical thinking. And both of them gave me a lot of support during my Chancellor’s fellowship work and my dissertation fellowship application, helping me go through the five-year study program smoothly. Special thanks also go to Dr. Gopal Sukhu, my outside reader. His insight into the issues of Fănqiē and his expertise on Chinese etymology contributed significantly to this dissertation. I am especially grateful to Nishi Bissoondial, our Assistant Program Officer, for taking impeccable care of every administrative need for me. I wish to acknowledge the encouragement from the following faculty at various stages of my study: Dianne C. Bradley, who guided me into the realm of phonology; Elaine Klein, who helped me with my study plan as my first mentor at the Graduate Center; Marcel den Dikken, who contributed comments to my second qualifying paper from which my dissertation developed. vi Without the company of my fellow students at the Graduate Center, this dissertation would not be written so smoothly. Thanks are due to the following: Nazik Dinctopal from the Linguistics Department, for her continuous encouragement when we worked in the computer hub; Seamus Donnelly from the Psychology Department, for his editorial support; Yan Yu from the Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, for her friendship and emotional support. I would also like to thank Linda Perrotta, the director of the Child Development Center at the Graduate Center, and her teaching team, who provide a very caring and warm educational environment for my son. Without their efforts, I could not have focused on my research. Words cannot express the debt I owe to my parents for their enduring patience and indulgence over the course of my study. They sacrificed leisure time to help me with baby-sitting on weekdays without any complaints. Without their support, I could have never completed this dissertation. My special thanks also go to my two sons, Hong-Kang and Hong-Yee, for their smiles and independence. Due to lack of my company, they had to play by themselves most of the time. Last but not least, I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to my husband, Jun Xu, for his unconditional support and earnest encouragement, which accompanied me through my journey of doctoral study. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT··························································································· iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS··············································································· vi TABLE OF CONTENTS···············································································viii LIST OF TABLES··············································································· xii LIST OF FIGURES··············································································· xiv LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS ······················································xvi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION·····································································1 1.1 The history of Chinese··························································· 1 1.2 The development of disyllables ··························································· 4 1.2.1 Identifying Chinese words ························································· 4 1.2.2 What are disyllables in Chinese? ················································7 1.2.3 Disyllabicity ··························································· 9 1.2.4 Exemplification ···························································12 1.3 Research goals································································13 1.4 Outline····································································14 CHAPTER 2: OLD CHINESE PHONOLOGY ···········································16 2.1 OC reconstruction································································16 2.1.1 OC reconstruction methods············································16 2.1.2 The OC reconstruction system adopted in this study ·····················20 2.2 Chinese syllable structure······························································30 viii CHAPTER 3: THE LIANMIAN WORD DATA····················································34 3.1 Preliminaries ·····························································34 3.2 Data collection·······························································36 3.3 Data composition·································································37 3.4 Target structure: Sound patterns and onsets ·········································38 CHAPTER 4 THE RISE OF SPLITTING-SOUND WORDS ···································46 4.1 Introduction ·······························································46
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