Even though the study of speech sounds has a long history in China, Chinese linguistics occurred as a modern discipline under the Western influence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Bernhard Karlgren and Yuen-ren Chao established a descriptive tradition in Chinese phonetics that was rooted in Chinese philology. The idea was to provide a new scientific way for the description of speech sounds in modern languages and dialects on the one hand, and to explain the development of the sounds in the history on the other. Chinese linguistics has henceforth adopted a pan-chronic approach. Phonetics and phonology are integral to the study of speech sounds, and synchronic and diachronic aspects are parts of linguistics. Chinese phonetics has a descriptive spirit, rather than being theory oriented. From the very beginning, Chinese phonetics has been developing toward an evidence-based, experimental approach. This is because in a descriptive tradition, phonetic diversities and phonological universals need to be explained not only by abstract rules or principles but also by physical substances.
One unique tradition of Chinese linguistics uses an active-articulator-based terminology for describing the place of articulation. The active-articulator-based terminology captures an anterior versus posterior distinction between apical articulations in Mandarin dialects. Meanwhile, it introduced confusion when the active-articulator-based terminology was used as a general framework. Linguistic contrasts of phonation and aspiration in consonants are of particular interest in Chinese linguistics because they are correlated with tonal developments. Wu dialects are rich in laryngeal distinction, and fine-grained phonetic details reveal how obstruent devoicing has been interweaving with tones.
Chinese vowels are featured by apical vowels and diphthongs. Apical vowels function as vowels in Chinese syllables, but there is a long debate on whether apical vowels are vowels or syllabic consonants. Accumulative evidence from both acoustic and articulatory studies shows that apical vowels are more vowel-like than consonant-like. Chinese dialects have complex inventories of diphthongs and triphthongs and even teraphthongs in a few rare cases. The nature of diphthong is essential to the understanding of the complexity of Chinese syllables. And there is a typological difference between falling and rising diphthongs in Chinese dialects. Falling diphthongs are a single articulatory event with a dynamic spectral target, while rising diphthongs are sequences of two spectral targets.
Article
The Descriptive Tradition in Chinese Phonetics
Fang Hu
Article
Dutch
Freek Van de Velde
This chapter presents a bird's eye perspective on Dutch, taking a historical perspective. Indeed, many characteristics of Dutch can only be understood by diachronically tracing the origin and development of its phonology, morphology, and syntax. For phonology, the major trends are an increasing phonemic importance and proliferation of vowels, an erosion of the Auslaut, and a closing and diphthongization of long vowels. For grammar the trends can be summarized as a gradual loss of inflectional morphology, a concomitant rise in configurationality, and a gradual crystallization in fixed expressions. Both in its structure and in its development there is considerable overlap with drifts in the neighboring languages, and indeed, Dutch is often found to occupy an intermediate position between its West-Germanic neighbors, not only geographically, but ‘typologically’ as well. Dialect variation is mainly organized along a geographic east–west axis, linking up with Franconian-Ingvaeonic contacts in the Early Middle Ages.
Article
Endangered Chinese Dialects
Qingwen Zhang and Guanen Chen
Starting from an overview of the 10 major Chinese dialect groups, the article aims to provide a comprehensive introduction to endangered Chinese dialects. It delineates the causes and indicators of endangerment, describes the geographical distribution and speaking population of endangered dialects, and elucidates the influence of dominant languages on the linguistic traits of endangered dialects. The paper concludes with an exploration of ongoing preservation efforts dedicated to safeguarding endangered Chinese dialects.
The decrease in language use, influenced by the dominance of Mandarin and other dominant dialects, is identified as the primary cause of endangerment. The implementation of the language policy designating Mandarin as the standard national language to be used in education, administration, and public domains throughout the country has further contributed to this decline. Indicators of endangerment include decreased language use, bilingualism or multilingualism in dominant dialects, and limited domains of usage resulting in language shifting. The disruption of linguistic transmission from older to younger generations is another factor contributing to a diminishing population of speakers. Geographically, the largest cluster of endangered Chinese dialects is distributed at the junction of Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hunan provinces. These dialects have a small population of speakers, ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands.
Linguistically, the impact of dominant dialects on endangered dialects pertains to their phonological, lexical, and grammatical properties. While phonological instability displayed due to the influence of dominant dialects, certain stable features are identified, such as the retention or development of Middle Chinese voiced stops and affricates, as well as the preservation of sharp sounds. Lexical properties of endangered dialects are discussed in two aspects: (a) distinctive words in endangered dialects, including dialect-specific words, ancient Chinese words, and those related to folk culture; (b) word order variation between the endangered dialect and its dominant dialect. The erosion of grammatical properties is also noted, with endangered dialects borrowing features from dominant dialects.
The article emphasizes the importance of preserving linguistic diversity and protecting endangered Chinese dialects. The National Language Resources Protection Project in China is introduced as a comprehensive initiative aimed at surveying, collecting, and recording language resources. The project includes the publication of books, symposia, and an online platform showcasing audio and video recordings of endangered dialects. However, a comprehensive approach that includes explicit language policies and the establishment of dialect-promoting institutions are necessary for comprehensive protection.
Article
Morphology of Determiners in the Romance Languages
Franck Floricic
The question of articles and definiteness has given rise to a great deal of work, whether from a theoretical, typological, historical, or other perspective. Given the breadth of the field, it would be unrealistic in a synthesis of this kind to go through all the work that has been done on this subject, some of which may be relatively old. We have therefore focused on a certain number of aspects which seemed relevant to us, taking into consideration dialectal data which are not often taken into account. Another difficulty of the undertaking is that the question of articles concerns various fields of investigation: syntax, semantics, phonology, and morphology. The focus of this contribution is therefore on the morphology of articles in Romance languages. After having sought to circumscribe the concept of determination, the origin and distribution of articles in a number of Romance varieties are described. Particular attention is paid to the phenomena of variation that manifest themselves at the phonomorphological level. The morpho-syntax of other kinds of determiners is discussed as well—demonstratives, quantifiers, and possessives. The question of the maintenance of case distinctions in the Romance determiners will also be addressed, as well as the discussed and intriguing question of lack of agreement within the noun phrase. Given their special status, it will be shown that personal and place names show particular constraints with respect to definite articles, due among other things to their historical genesis.
Article
Segmental Phonology, Phonotactics, and Syllable Structure in the Romance Languages
Stephan Schmid
From the perspective of phonological typology, the Romance languages exhibit considerable diversity, although they all originate from the same ancestor language, that is, “Vulgar Latin.” Most consonant inventories are of average size, with 20–23 phonemes, whereas typologically marked segments (e.g., palatal obstruents or retroflex consonants) only occur in a minority of Romance varieties. Instead, the number of vowel phonemes varies substantially, ranging from 5 in Spanish to 16 in French (which features front rounded vowels and nasal vowels). Substantial differences also exist regarding the treatment of unstressed vowels, which are subject to various degrees of reduction—including their deletion in both diachrony and synchrony. Consequently, such phonological processes yield various degrees of phonotactic complexity: While most Romance varieties are commonly counted among the so-called syllable languages, with a strong preference for open syllables and relatively simple consonant clusters ordered along the sonority scale, some dialects depart from this general tendency, allowing complex consonant clusters that may also run against the sonority sequencing generalization.
Article
Syllable Structure in Germanic
Laura Catharine Smith
Syllable structure has helped shape the Germanic languages and, remarkably, the syllable template inherited from Germanic has remained relatively stable over nearly 2,000 years since our first written Germanic records. Onsets permit anywhere from zero to three consonants with only /ŋ/ barred from forming a word-initial simple onset. As for complex onsets, English has simplified many inherited clusters, for example, /kn/➔[n], while Yiddish has developed a wider range of possible clusters. What they have in common is that two-consonant clusters are formed from obstruents+sonorants, conforming to the Sonority Sequencing Generalization (SSG) stipulating that sonority should fall from the nucleus toward the syllable edges. This generalization, however, is violated by three-consonant clusters, namely sequences of a sibilant plus two consonants, usually an obstruent+liquid.
The monophthongs and diphthongs filling the nucleus (as well as syllabic sonorants in some varieties) have a symbiotic relationship with the following coda mediated via the rhyme. Because stressed syllables are preferably bimoraic as per Prokosch’s Law, vowels are long in open syllables or when followed by at most one consonant. However, before two consonants (including orthographically), vowels are typically short. This plays out in unique ways in various languages. In some Scandinavian languages, consonants are lengthened after short vowels, thereby building contrasts via not only vowel length, but also consonant length, for example, Icelandic [ma:n] ‘young lady, acc.’ versus [man:] ‘man, acc.’ Thus, some scholars have argued that vowel length is allophonic in these Scandinavian languages, but phonemic in languages like German and English, for example, bit [bɪt] versus beat [bijt]. As for coda consonants, the SSG typically applies, creating a large number of clusters that are generally mirror images of permissible onsets. Many coda clusters have the shape sonorant+obstruent or liquid+nasal. These latter clusters may be broken up, for example, Afrikaans fil(ə)m ‘film’, or simplified in some languages, for example, Norwegian nd clusters➔n. Word finally, clusters tend to be more complex both in the coda, as well as due to the coronal appendix consonants added to the end of the coda. These appendices more often than not coincide with morphological complexity, for example, German Gast+s ‘guest, gen.sg.’, though not always, for example, Dutch herf-st ‘autumn’.
Indeed, rules for syllabification highlight the differences between word-initial and medial onsets because maximizing the onset also does not hold across some morphemic boundaries, for example, Lie.be ‘love’ but lieb.lich ‘lovely’. Furthermore, while languages like Dutch tend to maximize onsets like German and English, they also balance that with the need for stressed syllables to be minimally bimoraic leading to the syllabification as-ter, for instance, rather than *a-ster with the onset maximized. And, lastly, following the Contact Law, syllable contacts are more preferred when there is a strong onset following a weak coda. This preference can account for differential syllable divisions, for example, p.l in Icelandic but .pl in Faroese, as well as ultimately changes in onsets such as West Germanic gemination and glide strengthening. What makes each language unique is how they have individually adapted the syllable template through time. It is these differences that provide a more complete perspective of Germanic syllable structure and form the basis for the current discussion.
Article
Morphologization and the Boundary Between Morphology and Phonology in the Romance Languages
Paul O'Neill
This article analyses, from a Romance perspective, the concept of morphologization and seeks to answer the following question: At what point does a historically proven phonological cause-and-effect relationship, whereby phonological feature X causes and determines phonological feature Y, cease to hold and the dephonologized Y element stand as a marker of some morphological distinction? The question is relevant to cases in which the original phonological conditioning element is still present and where it has disappeared. I explain that the answer to this question depends entirely on one’s conception of morphology and phonology. I argue against theories that adhere to the principle of lexical minimization and have a static conception of morphology, which is restricted to the concatenation of idiosyncratic morphemes. These theories are forced by their theoretical underpinnings, which are often ideological and not supported by robust empirical evidence, to explain morphologized phenomena as being synchronically derived by phonology. This approach comes at a huge cost: the model of phonology is endowed with powerful tools to make the analysis fit the theory and which ultimately diminishes the empirical content and plausibility of the phonological hypotheses; such approaches also constitute serious problems for language acquisition and learning. I argue for more dynamic and abstractive models of morphology, which do not impose strict restrictions on lexical storage. I ultimately view morphologization as an instance of morphologically conditioned phonology and uphold that there is no strict boundary between the phonology and morphology but both systems overlap and interact.
I analyze data and phonological explanations of metaphony in nouns and verbs in Italo-Romance, plural formation in Spanish and Portuguese, the distribution of velar allomorphy in the Italian and Spanish verbs, and the distribution of verbal stress in Surmiran Romansh and Spanish. With reference to the latter, the contribution dedicates significant space exploring the extent to which the diphthong/monophthong alternation in Spanish, and different types of allomorphy in Surmiran Romansh, is a matter of phonologically conditioned allomorphy or morphologically conditioned phonology.
Article
Dislocation in the Romance Languages: Syntax, Semantics, Discourse, Acquisition
Davide Garassino
Dislocations are syntactic constructions consisting of a core sentence and a detached constituent located outside the clause, either at its left (left dislocation) or at its right (right dislocation). Typically, although not invariably, the clause hosts a resumptive element, often a pronoun, which is co-referent with the detached constituent. This separation between an extra-clausal element and the sentence led to the classification of dislocations as “non-canonical” or “marked” syntactic structures.
Dislocations are attested in many language families, to the extent that they can be regarded as a language universal. However, these constructions have predominantly been examined in Germanic and Romance languages, both in formal and functional frameworks.
Left and right dislocations are usually analyzed as topic-marking structures, in which the referent of the detached element has the function of sentence topic. However, specific types of topics appear to preferentially occur in either left or right dislocation. For example, left dislocations often convey topic shifts and contrastive topics, while continuous (or familiar) topics are more commonly found in right dislocations. Nonetheless, corpus-based research unveiled a more nuanced situation. Furthermore, interactionally oriented studies also suggest that exploring dislocations in spontaneous conversations is crucial for comprehending their broad functional spectrum.
Thus, dislocations present many intriguing challenges to Romance linguistics, including the questions, To what extent do left and right dislocations differ syntactically and pragmatically across Romance languages? Are descriptions framed in terms of “topic establishing” and “topic promotion” truly adequate? What are the main prosodic characteristics of left and right dislocations? and What challenges do L1 and L2 learners encounter in the acquisition of these constructions?
Article
Gothic and Other East Germanic Varieties
Stefan Schaffner
Biblical Gothic is the earliest Germanic language preserved in a longer text. The main source is represented by the Bible translation of the Visigothic Arian Christian bishop Wulfila ( born ca. 311, deceased ca. 382–383). Another few short Gothic texts are extant. For the translation of the Bible (ca. 350–380), on the basis of a Greek text, Wulfila invented his own alphabet (called Wulfila’s alphabet), using the Greek alphabet as model, with the addition of Latin and runic characters. Several manuscripts (5th/6th century; the most famous is the Uppsala Codex argenteus) contain the greater part of the New Testament. In spite of its fragmentary documentation, Gothic represents without doubt an important basis for the reconstruction of Proto-Germanic, because it offers—due to its early attestation—very archaic features in all areas of its grammar in comparison with the other old Germanic languages, the documentation of which began some centuries later. Gothic also shows recent innovations (especially the almost complete elimination of the effects of Verner’s Law within the strong verbs). The position of Gothic within the other Germanic subgroups, North and West Germanic, is still a matter of controversial discussion. Whereas older research stressed the correspondences between Gothic and North Germanic and, therefore, favored a closer relationship between them, postulating a subgroup Goto-Nordic, currently, a subgrouping into Northwest Germanic on the one hand and East Germanic (with Gothic as the most important representative) one the other hand is preferred, although this model also leaves open a couple of questions, giving impetus to further research. Other varieties of East Germanic are runic epigraphic texts (less than 10, most of them probably Gothic) from the 1st half of the 3rd century until the end of the 6th century. One of them (on the Charnay fibula, 2nd half of the 6th century) is probably of Burgundian origin. The documentation of other EGrm (East Germanic). languages is very poor and consists almost only of a few names. Two short syntagmata can probably be attributed to Vandalic. Crimean Gothic, the latest attested EGrm. language, is documented in a list of several dozen words and three lines of a cantilena. Most attested forms seem to represent a late EGrm. dialect.
Article
Intonation in the Romance Languages
Barbara Gili Fivela
The article discusses the main intonation features of Catalan, French, Italian, Occitan, Portuguese, Raeto-Romance, Romanian, Sardinian, and Spanish, even though they have been investigated to different extents for their intonation traits. Differing amount of research has been carried out on each individual language, this research has often been performed with different methods and with reference to different frameworks, and, finally, investigations have considered language dialects and varieties in a variety of ways.
Nevertheless, scientific literature on intonation in Romance languages, especially that which refers to the autosegmental–metrical framework, has highlighted similarities and differences regarding prominence, phrasing, and the relationship between intonation patterns and pragmatic meaning. Pitch prominence is attested in all languages and varieties, whether it is related to lexical stressed positions or accentual phrases (APs), and the nuclear prominence does not need to be implemented on the rightmost element; consistently, Romance languages usually show pitch-range compression rather than de-accenting in statements. As for phrasing, most languages and varieties feature at least two levels above the word (the intonational phrase [IP] and the intermediate phrase [ip]), while some languages and varieties also feature a third level in the prosodic hierarchy (the AP), and one variety has one level only (the IP). Regarding pitch patterns, languages and varieties show a highly variable number of nuclear contours and internal variation; these, however, largely depend on the sentence type; this is because variation tends to be greater in questions than in broad-focus statements, where the usual pattern a falling one Romance languages.
The article’s final remarks focus on open issues, such as the debates on pitch-accent density and the prosodic levels, with a specific reference to the ip constituent and to constituents larger than the IP. Additionally, it addresses the need for larger comparable corpora, collected by means of the same methods and transcribed with reference to the same framework, as well as for a wider perspective which also takes into account the integration of context and multimodal information, in order to deepen the current body of knowledge on intonation in the Romance languages.
