Can the final sound change depending on what initial is combined with?

[colcode]

When someone learns Standard Chinese consonants and vowels, they need to learn some exceptions on how to pronounce compound finals like for example the "a" in "yan" is not the same as the "a" in "ya". "yan" is not the only exception there are others like "yang", "ying", "wen" etc.

 

This is not a huge problem as it's easy to treat each final as a new sound and memorize it. 

 

What I'm wondering is whether the final sound can also change depending on the initial sound. In other words, is there any example where for the same final, changing the initial may affect on how this same final is pronounced in the two instances. in other words, can there be an example where the "a" in "ba" and "pa" is different just because we have different initials "b/p"?

 

 

[Shelley]

This table might help as maybe the article itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin_table

 

I can't remember coming across any examples of the sort you mention, it seems there re no real exceptions because it is all covered by this table. But I could be wrong.

[anonymoose]

On ‎8‎/‎17‎/‎2018 at 12:40 PM, colcode said:

What I'm wondering is whether the final sound can also change depending on the initial sound.

 

Absolutely. Compare xi and si, for example.

[Publius]

13 hours ago, anonymoose said:

Absolutely. Compare xi and si, for example.

Depends on how you define a "final".

 

The syllables zhi, chi, shi, ri, zi, ci, si may be described as having a syllabic consonant and no vowel at all; or they may be described as having a vowel [ɨ] or [ɯ].

There is no finals for 知（ㄓ）、蚩（ㄔ）、诗（ㄕ）、日（ㄖˋ）、资（ㄗ）、雌（ㄘˊ）、思（ㄙ） if you use Zhuyin instead of Pinyin.

It's also quite clear from the original 汉语拼音方案 that a letter i is arbitrarily assigned to these syllables (because without a vowel letter, they just don't look like a pronounceable syllable in most languages using the Latin alphabet).

[edelweis]

On 8/17/2018 at 1:40 PM, colcode said:

can there be an example where the "a" in "ba" and "pa" is different just because we have different initials "b/p"?

 

15 hours ago, anonymoose said:

Compare xi and si, for example.

 

bu and qu.

[陳德聰]

This question can be interpreted as a question about pinyin spelling conventions, i.e. “does/can a sound represented by a set of pinyin letters change depending on the initial?” OR it can be interpreted as a question of phonology, i.e. “does the way a rhyme is pronounced change based on the onset?”

 

Pinyin spelling conventions absolutely end up giving you things like “bu and qu” where the “u” in “qu” is actually a “ü,” but this is not a change in the actual sound, it’s just a spelling convention.

[Manuel]

In Chinese, finals in isolation and in combination with an initial are pronounced identically. Initial sounds, however, can be affected by the final of the proceeding syllable, and final sounds can be affected by the initial of the following syllable. This phenomenon can be observed in any language and happens because speakers are naturally lazy and tend to skimp on the "logistics" of sound articulation so as to reduce effort involved and maximise the speed of speech, potentially at the expense of intelligibility. Speakers eventually find a balance point that guarantees close to 100% intelligibility whilst reducing the work their speech organs are required to do.

 

If you are interested in the fine details of Chinese phonetics, I highly recommend The Sounds of Chinese by Yen-Hwei Lin (ISBN 978-0-521-60398-0). This text provides surgical insight into Chinese pronunciation. Any question you may have about Chinese pronunciation is answered somewhere in this book—guaranteed. If you are obsessed about Chinese pronunciation like I was, this is your holy grail. Here are some definitions are from the book (paraphrased):

 

Assimilation: A process in which a sound becomes similar in certain features to an adjacent sound. (p. 150)

Weakening: A consonant weakening process is one in which a voiceless stop becomes voiced or  a consonant with greater constriction becomes one with less constriction. (p. 158)

Reduction: A vowel reduction process is one in which a vowel in a syllable without stress or tone tends to be reduce (i.e. become shorter, centralized, or lax, in other words, moved closer to the mid central region of the vowel space) (p. 160)

 

This book enabled me to self-diagnose bad pronunciation habits and guide me down the correct path. Eventually, the brain internalizes it all and it becomes second nature.