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Prelinked and Floating Glottal Stops In Fuzhou Chinese
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 June 2016
Extract
Numerous interesting problems in the phonology of different dialects of Chinese tend to be buried in Chinese-language sources, or have not yet gained the attention of phonologists in general. One such case is the final glottal stop in modern Fuzhou, with respect to its behaviour synchronically and its historical origins. The final glottal stop came from two earlier sources, *-k and *-?. While *-k has completely merged with *-? in stressed syllables, evidences of the earlier contrast can still be found in the modern dialect — in how it behaves in more weakly stressed syllables in tone sandhi spans, and in its effect on adjacent consonants. It is proposed here that the continued relevance of the former phonological contrast can be accounted for by treating the final glottal stop from *-k as a prelinked glottal stop, and the one from *-? as a floating segment within the autosegmental approach. In this paper I will trace the history of these two codas, as well as address the implications that the differences in representation have with respect to subsequent changes in the language. I will conclude with a discussion of other languages for which a floating glottal stop solution has been offered.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , December 1990 , pp. 331 - 349
- Copyright
- Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1990
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