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

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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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  • The Role of the Glottal Stop in Diminutives: an OT Perspective*

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    LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS 8.3:639-666, 2007 2007-0-008-003-000168-1 The Role of the Glottal Stop in Diminutives: * An OT Perspective Raung-fu Chung Ming-chung Cheng Southern Taiwan University of Technology National Kaohsiung Normal University In this article, we first sort out the glottal stop patterns in the YBTH diminutives, namely, middle-GSI, final-GSI, and no-GSI (GSI = glottal stop insertion). After further analysis, those varieties in appearance come out essentially with different rankings of the same set of phonological constraints. In the middle-GSI type of dialects, the related phonological constraints work in the ranking order of MAX-IO, ANCHOR-BD(L/R), SON-SEQ, MAX-BD, LINEARITY-BD >> IDENTITY-BD[F], CONTIGUITY-BD, DEP-BD, while in the final-GSI dialects, the order is MAX-IO, ANCHOR-BD(L), CONTIGUITY-BD, SON-SEQ, MAX-BD, IDENTITY-BD[F], LINEARITY-BD >> ANCHOR-BD(R), DEP-BD. The no-GSI type of dialects are unique in that the order of the constraint is ANCHOR-BD(L/R), CONTIGUITY-BD, SON-SEQ, MAX-BD, DEP-BD, IDENTITY-BD[F], LINEARITY-BD >> MAX-IO, which places the MAX-IO in the lowest ranking. It is obvious that MAX-IO, as a constraint of the Faithfulness family, plays a central role for the presence or absence of the glottal stop. When MAX-IO is ranked high, the glottal stop shows up. When it is low, there is no glottal stop. Key words: glottal stop, diminutive, Yuebei Tuhua, optimality theory, output-to-output correspondence (OOC) 1. Introduction This article is an investigation into the role of the glottal stop in the development and formation of diminutives in Chinese dialects in general, and in Yuebei Tuhua (hereafter, YBTH) in particular.
  • Learning Chinese

    Learning Chinese

    Learning Chinese Chinese is the native language of over a billion speakers, more Language Family people than any other language. It is spoken in China, Singapore, Sino-Tibetan Malaysia, and in many overseas Chinese communities. Dialect 4UBOEBSE.BOEBSJOJTCBTFEPO/PSUIFSO Writing Systems: Chinese dialects. Standard Mandarin is Simplified, Traditional, and Pinyin the language of business, education, and the media in all regions of China, and is tSimplified Chinese (e.g. 汉语) characters are widely used in the People’s widely understood in almost every corner Republic of China. They are based on and share most of their characters of the Chinese-speaking world. with traditional Chinese characters. t Traditional Chinese (e.g. 漢語) characters are in widespread use in Your Learning Options Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and in many overseas Chinese communities. t3PTFUUB4UPOFPGGFSTZPVUIFDIPJDFPG Knowledge of traditional characters will also allow you to recognize many Simplified or Traditional characters characters in classical Chinese texts. for your course. Simplified Traditional tPinyin (e.g. hàn yǔ) is a method of writing Chinese using the Roman alphabet. Pinyin is a transliteration of characters into the Roman script and is used for teaching the language phonetically and for typing Chinese. t3PTFUUB4UPOFBMTPBMMPXTZPVUPMFBSOUP speak and understand spoken Chinese Language Tips without learning Chinese characters. t$IJOFTFJTXSJUUFOXJUIOPTQBDFTCFUXFFOXPSET If this is your objective, you can study your course in the pinyin script. t&BDIDIBSBDUFSJO$IJOFTFDPSSFTQPOETUPBTJOHMFTZMMBCMF tThe meaning of a Chinese syllable depends on the tone with which it is spoken. Chinese has four tones: t3PTFUUB4UPOFHJWFTZPVUIFBCJMJUZUP mā má mǎ mà view pinyin along with the characters. steady high 2 high rising 3 low falling-rising 4 falling You can use this feature as a t"UPOFNBZDIBOHFTMJHIUMZEFQFOEJOHPOUIFUPOFTPGJUTOFJHICPSJOH pronunciation guide for the characters you encounter in the course.
  • The Rise of Agricultural Civilization in China: the Disparity Between Archeological Discovery and the Documentary Record and Its Explanation

    The Rise of Agricultural Civilization in China: the Disparity Between Archeological Discovery and the Documentary Record and Its Explanation

    SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS Number 175 December, 2006 The Rise of Agricultural Civilization in China: The Disparity between Archeological Discovery and the Documentary Record and Its Explanation by Zhou Jixu Center for East Asian Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Chinese Department, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, Sichuan Victor H. Mair, Editor Sino-Platonic Papers Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 USA [email protected] www.sino-platonic.org SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS is an occasional series edited by Victor H. Mair. The purpose of the series is to make available to specialists and the interested public the results of research that, because of its unconventional or controversial nature, might otherwise go unpublished. The editor actively encourages younger, not yet well established, scholars and independent authors to submit manuscripts for consideration. Contributions in any of the major scholarly languages of the world, including Romanized Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM) and Japanese, are acceptable. In special circumstances, papers written in one of the Sinitic topolects (fangyan) may be considered for publication. Although the chief focus of Sino-Platonic Papers is on the intercultural relations of China with other peoples, challenging and creative studies on a wide variety of philological subjects will be entertained. This series is not the place for safe, sober, and stodgy presentations. Sino-Platonic Papers prefers lively work that, while taking reasonable risks to advance the field, capitalizes on brilliant new insights into the development of civilization. The only style-sheet we honor is that of consistency. Where possible, we prefer the usages of the Journal of Asian Studies.
  • The Later Han Empire (25-220CE) & Its Northwestern Frontier

    The Later Han Empire (25-220CE) & Its Northwestern Frontier

    University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2012 Dynamics of Disintegration: The Later Han Empire (25-220CE) & Its Northwestern Frontier Wai Kit Wicky Tse University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Asian History Commons, Asian Studies Commons, and the Military History Commons Recommended Citation Tse, Wai Kit Wicky, "Dynamics of Disintegration: The Later Han Empire (25-220CE) & Its Northwestern Frontier" (2012). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 589. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/589 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/589 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Dynamics of Disintegration: The Later Han Empire (25-220CE) & Its Northwestern Frontier Abstract As a frontier region of the Qin-Han (221BCE-220CE) empire, the northwest was a new territory to the Chinese realm. Until the Later Han (25-220CE) times, some portions of the northwestern region had only been part of imperial soil for one hundred years. Its coalescence into the Chinese empire was a product of long-term expansion and conquest, which arguably defined the egionr 's military nature. Furthermore, in the harsh natural environment of the region, only tough people could survive, and unsurprisingly, the region fostered vigorous warriors. Mixed culture and multi-ethnicity featured prominently in this highly militarized frontier society, which contrasted sharply with the imperial center that promoted unified cultural values and stood in the way of a greater degree of transregional integration. As this project shows, it was the northwesterners who went through a process of political peripheralization during the Later Han times played a harbinger role of the disintegration of the empire and eventually led to the breakdown of the early imperial system in Chinese history.