Chinese Dialects Child Rhyme Pronunciation Phonology Analysis

The formal and functional analysis of er-suffixation of various kinds of Chinese is conducted. The er-suffixation includes er-coda, retroflexed rhyme and /?/ - or / l /- infixation.Recent years have witnessed the interface between functionalism and formalism in linguistics, which is what chapter 1 introduces, in particular, one between formal phonology and functional phonology. The interface is achieved by putting phonetics and phonology in one theoretical frame, and by uniting the gradual and quantitative phonetic elements such as principles of effort saving and maximal perceptional contrast with the abstract and qualitative phonological elements. This practice enriches the phonological study, and furthermore, strengthens its explanatory adequacy.The first part introduces the current schools of the functional and/or formal phonology . One of the representative scholars of the functional phonology is Ohala, whose theory of the listener- and articulation-driven sound changes is introduced. The functional formal phonology is functional in that it advocates the role of the principles of effort saving and maximal perceptional contrast in sound changes. Articulatory Phonology is also functional in essence, because the gestural coordination is functionally and phonetic grounded. Based Optimality theory Gafos develops AP into a theoretical frame by uniting the gestural alignment and production and perception. Kirchner makes a tentative effort mainly resorting to the effort saving (the relevant constraint he employs is LAZY). In terms of perception, Licensing-by-Cue framework and P-map theory by Steriade and Dispersion Theory by Flemming are representative of the formalization of this kind. The second part makes a rough evaluation of Articulatory Phonology. AP holds that gestural coordination can trigger phonetic sound changes and phonological alternations, that is, some gestural coordination, such as gestural overlapping and masking, is sure to produce gradual phonetic changes, some of which are categorical because of gestural deletion and insertion.The theoretical framework to be employed, including Optimamlity Theory and Articulatory, is introduced in Chapter 2, and the gestural coordination in Chinese is discussed finally.Chapter 3 talks about the production and perception of retroflexed segments. The retroflexe is marked typologically and articulatorily, but its perceptional salience differs in different phonetic contexts. Acoustic and articulatory studies show that a retroflexe preceded by a vowel is perceptionally more salient than the one preceding a vowel. The salience is realized via the retroflexion of the vowel ahead and the falling of the third formant of the vowel, from which the current analysis departs.Chapter 4 introduces the constraints of er-suffixation in Chinese. The gestural coordinations of different forms of retroflexed vowels display themselves two basic gestural alignments, shown as follows:The direct coordination between the consonant and the retroflexed vowel is enabled by the above two alignments, thus realizing the maximal perceptional salience of the er-suffix. The different orderings of the two constraints of er-suffixation and other relevant constraints such as *OVERLAP produce different er-suffixations in Chinese dialects.Chapter 5 and chapter 6 ot-ize the er-coda and retroflexed rhymes in different Chinese dialects.Chapter 5 makes a formal analysis of er-coda. Er-coda means that the er-suffix does not undergo merging itself into the preceded syllable. There is no gestural overlapping between er-suffix and the gesture(s) ahead, and in the formal evaluation, the faithfulness constraints are placed in the forward end of the constraint hierarchy.Chapter 6 ot-izes the retroflexed rhymes in Chinese dialects, of which Beijing dialect is the representative. These dialects share the featue of retroflexed vowels but different greatly in the types of the resulted vowels. The feature can be reflected by the different orderings of the gestural faithfulness constrains, er-suffixation constraints and other relevant markedness constrains.Chapter 7 focuses on the er-infixation of Chinese dialects in terms of gestural coordination. /?/ - or / l /- insertion is another way of realization of er- suffixation , resulting from the particular gestural coordination between the consonant and the retroflexed vowel. The CV coordination is C(release-offset)= ?(ronset), shown as follows:The gap between C and V gestures is the inserted segment/?/ or /l/, which is both consonantal and vocalic, and which serves to bridge the articulatorily contradicting gestures. The special property of the inserted segment manifests itself that it is not an retroflexed segment. Three basic relevant questions are raised for further research.