A Phonological Analysis Of Retroflex Suffixation In The Northern Chinese Dialects

Retroflex suffixation(r-suffixation)is a phenomenon of syllable merger.It is used to denote small things and distinguish meaning and word class.As a common characteristics of northern Chinese dialects,r-suffixation has not been studied as a whole while many aspects of r-suffixation within a certain dialect have been studied in depth.Is r-suffixation in northern Chinese a mere attachment of the retroflex feature?Are there any similarities or differences between different dialects in the phenomenon of r-suffixation?This thesis is going to elaborate on these two problems in a phonological way.Optimality Theory(OT for short)is a kind of linguistic theory first proposed in the early 1990s.A central idea in OT is that grammars are systems of forces in conflict represented by constraints.OT has been adopted to solve many phonological problems including r-suffixation in China.This thesis examines the various types of r-suffixation in northern Chinese on theoretical basis of OT with the help of different rankings of the constraints.This thesis is organized into six chapters.Chapter One is an introduction part.In this chapter,some background information is introduced,including the definition of r-suffixation,the structure of Chinese syllable and research object.In this thesis,we consider r-suffixation as the attachment of the retroflex feature other than a segment.Chapter Two is a literature review.In this chapter,previous studies of r-suffixation will be elaborated.Different aspects of studies on r-suffixation and different ways on these studies will be covered.Thus the aim and the contribution of this thesis will also be elaborated.Chapter Three discusses the Optimality Theory,which the author uses to analyze r-suffixation.OT is of the contemporary linguistic theory and this thesis intends to apply this theory into the investigation of Chinese linguistic phenomenon,in order to provide an innovative perspective.The reason why other research methods are not adopted is also elaborated.Chapter Four exhibits the data collected from every representative district of the eight major dialects of northern Chinese.The classification of r-suffixation in each dialect with examples is also elaborated.Chapter Five provides an OT analysis of r-suffixation in northern Chinese.This chapter also works out the constraints involved in the process of r-suffixation,as well as their appropriate rankings.Chapter Six is a conclusion to summarize the whole thesis and clarify the similarity and variations of r-suffixation in different dialects of northern Chinese.R-suffixation is not merely the attachment of the retroflex feature to the original rhyme of the host syllable.The output depends on the type of the rhyme,and varies from dialect to dialect.However,there are some rules which prevent the suffixed forms from being a mass and unpredictable.