A Study Of Tibetan Complex Consonants In Yushu Area

Yushu dialect is a branch of Khams dialect of Tibetan, in which a few consonant clusters were preserved, tones and diphthongs existed, relative to other central tibetan dialect, such as Amdo and other Khams dialects(e.g. Dege dialect).One tendency in Tibetan evolution is the loss of consonant clusters, which was found to be unbalanced among Tibetan dialects. Consonant clusters is said to be the mirror of Ancient Tibetan phonology, a bunch of them were presevered in Amdo, while in Khams and central Tibetan they almost disappear. In Yushu dialect, they are on the process of disappearing.The present study sychronically conducts a general discription of Yushu dialect phonology, and finds the correspondence of consonant clusters between Ancient Tibetan and modern Yushu dialect. Based on historical linguistic approaches, the development path of consonant clusters is analyzed from their typological distribution in Tibetan dialects.As we found, there is a great consistency of the development path of consonant clusters in various dialects in Yushu area, except the degree of loss of prenasalized obstruents, which comes from the consonant cluster ?C-, m C- in Ancient Tibetan. Other differences originated from historical change are the slightly advance of articulation place, or the devoicing of voiced consonants.Among Tibetan dialects, the preservation of prenasalized obstruents makes Yushu dialect distinctive from other typical Khams(e.g. Dege dialect). Compare to central Tibetan, the basic form of consonant cluster in Yushu dialect remains its voicing feature.Besides, some kinds of sound change are more complex in Yushu dialects relative to other Tibetan dialects, including Amdo dialect. The complexity of the sound change lies on the Cl- and bj- consonant clusters.Generally, on the degree of the simplification of consonant clusters, Yushu dialects locates in the middle of Amdo dialect and typical Khams, central Tibetan; On the sound changes of consonant clusters, most of them show a relatively regular pattern, while few are irregular.