Zero initial

[chrix]

Question about historical phonology: which 清濁 category does the zero initial belong to? Phonologically speaking, it should be 濁, but then you get a number of zero initial characters in 陰平, like 哀, 安, 歐, 恩 etc. (actually Schuessler says the first could be onomatopoetic and the last two aren't in the dictionary )

Also there are some more with glide initials, and also 陰平

I think I must be missing some exception to the sound change, or can these all be explained away somehow?

[Hofmann]

Wouldn't they all be 清?

[chrix]

Phonologically, they shouldn't be 清 but 濁... though if you posit a glottal stop like Schuessler does then it might work (I know that a velar nasal initial is omitted and counts as 濁, e.g. 餓). But some sources relating to Chinese dialectology differentiate between three types of initials that became zero in most modern languages, i.e. the zero initial, the glottal stop and the velar nasal.

I guess what I'm after is a definitive source that categorises the initial properly.

[Hofmann]

OK...looking at this table, I looked up in 廣韻 characters with initials that have been reconstructed as a glottal stop or no initial.

The 影 initial is 清.

The 云 initial is 濁.

The 以 initial is 濁.

[chrix]

Thanks. Were you able to find any 陰平 ones like 衣 for instance?

It looks though that Schuessler posits a glottal stop whenever it's 陰平, even if it then starts with a glide... (so 衣 is "?jei"). Hm...

[Hofmann]

Yes, plenty 陰平.

See attachment for a short list. It has some characters that make the forum software truncate my post.

陰平.txt

[chrix]

Schuessler has "翁 ?ung", so here we go again. All right, so they're classified as 清 then. Thanks.

Edited January 30, 2010 at 09:56 PM by chrix