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A Synchronic Phonology of Mandarin Chinese.
This comprehensive study of Chinese phonology covers both factual description and theoretical analyses. In addition, efforts have been made to avoid unecessary jargon and to introduce relevant theories in a non-technical way.
Breaking with the Saussurean tradition of separating the synchronic from the diachronic, this book presents an analysis of Mandarin Chinese segmental phonology in which rules and constraints are modeled after historical sound change. The analysis provides original solutions to major phonological problems, most notably, the relationship between sibilant and velar initials, the organization of vowel space and relations between vowel phonemes, the nature of the «zero onset», and the identity and effect of the diminutive suffix. Changes in the pronunciation of Standard Chinese are accounted for using recent conceptions of feature geometry; research into language contact on the Sino-Turkic frontier leads to the discovery of Altaic vowel harmony in Mandarin, an original hypothesis that drastically simplifies Mandarin morphophonology and introduces a new dimension to the vowel system of Northern Chinese.
Through acoustic analysis of Mandarin Chinese intonation, the author finds that the intonation baseline moves up when intonation is shifted from assertive to interrogative; therefore, two baselines and two intonation layers must be reckoned with. Sentence intonation affects the tonal values and the tonal shapes of intrinsic lexical tones, though not beyond recognition. Tonal changes prove to be closely related to sentence intonation, which is superimposed simultaneously onto the utterance as a whole. The author's findings support the position of the movability of the intonation baseline and rectify some widely spread traditional claims concerning Mandarin Chinese prosody.
The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Linguistics offers a broad and comprehensive coverage of the entire field from a multi-disciplinary perspective. All chapters are contributed by leading scholars in their respective areas. This Handbook contains eight sections: history, languages and dialects, language contact, morphology, syntax, phonetics and phonology, socio-cultural aspects and neuro-psychological aspects. It provides not only a diachronic view of how languages evolve, but also a synchronic view of how languages in contact enrich each other by borrowing new words, calquing loan translation and even developing new syntactic structures. It also accompanies traditional linguistic studies of grammar and phonology with empirical evidence from psychology and neurocognitive sciences. In addition to research on the Chinese language and its major dialect groups, this handbook covers studies on sign languages and non-Chinese languages, such as the Austronesian languages spoken in Taiwan.
The universalist view that acquisition of phonology is guided by universal principles has been the dominant position for decades. More recently, an alternative view has brought into focus the relationship between developmental markedness and language-specific input frequencies. With entirely original chapters on non-ambient-like productions by typically and atypically developing children, and second language learners, Unusual Productions in Phonology delves deeply into these competing explanations to show that patterns observed do not uniquely lend themselves to one or the other explanations. Rather, they point towards the need for both universal markedness and statistical input considerations in any attempted explanation. Containing contributions from leading researchers from around the world, this impressive collection is a must-have resource for any researcher, practitioner, or advanced student specializing in phonology, cognitive psychology, applied linguistics, and communication disorders.
Generative Phonology: Description and Theory provides a basic understanding of the fundamental concepts of generative phonology and the applications of these concepts in further study of phonological structure. This book is composed of 10 chapters and begins with a survey of phonology in the overall model of generative grammar and introduces the principles of phonetics to. The subsequent chapters introduce the fundamental concept of a phonological rule that relates an underlying representation to a phonetic representation and this concept is applied to the analysis of morphophonemic alternation. These topics are followed by a presentation of phonological sketches of four diverse languages in terms of rules relating underlying and phonetic representations, as well as the major corpus-internal principles and techniques of phonological analysis. The discussion then shifts to the theoretical aspects of phonology, the various degrees of abstractness, and the proposals to limit the divergence between underlying and phonetic representation. Other chapters deal with some of the issues revolving around the representation of sounds and the various hypotheses as to how phonological rules apply to convert the underlying representation to the phonetic representation, particularly the kinds of considerations that motivate rule-ordering statements. The last chapters explore the major notational devices commonly employed in the formulation of phonological rules and the role of syntactic and lexical information in controlling the application of phonological rules. This book is intended primarily for linguistics and phonologists.
Cantonese is a language from southern China that is spoken by roughly 70 million people worldwide. It is the language of Hong Kong cinema and has traditionally been the most prominent language spoken in Chinatowns around the world. People choose to learn Cantonese for a variety of social and economic reasons: because it is a heritage language that one’s relatives speak; because it is the language of one’s partner and monolingual in-laws; because it is necessary for living and working in Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, or other Cantonese-speaking communities; because it is the bridge to fully appreciating and understanding Cantonese culture; or simply because it is an irresistible challenge. Whatever the motivation, more and more people are choosing to learn Cantonese as an additional language. This book discusses many issues related to both acquiring and teaching Cantonese. If you are a learner of Cantonese, this long overdue volume is essential to understanding both the grammatical and the social issues involved with learning this notoriously difficult language. If you are a teacher, this book will be invaluable to gaining insight into your students’ motivations and needs. And finally, if you are an applied linguist, the unique aspects related to the acquisition of Cantonese offer a fascinating contribution to the literature.