Chongniu

Last updated • 5 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Chóngniǔ (simplified Chinese : 重 纽 ; traditional Chinese : 重 紐 ; lit. 'repeated button') or rime doublets are certain pairs of Middle Chinese syllables that are consistently distinguished in rime dictionaries and rime tables, but without a clear indication of the phonological basis of the distinction.

Contents

Description

Rime dictionaries such as the Qieyun and Guangyun divided words by tone and then into rhyme groups. Each rhyme group was subdivided into homophone groups preceded by a small circle called a niǔ ( 紐 , 'button'). [1] [2] The pronunciation of each homophone group was indicated by a fǎnqiè formula, a pair of characters having respectively the same initial and final sound as the word being described. [3] [4] By systematically analysing the fanqie, it is possible to identify equivalent initial and final spellers, and thus enumerate the initials and finals, but not their phonetic values. [5] Rime tables such as the Yunjing further analysed the syllables distinguished by the rime dictionaries into initial consonant, 'open' (kāi 開) or 'closed' (hé 合), divisions (I–IV), broad rhyme class and tone. The closed distinction is generally considered to represent lip rounding. [6]

The interpretation of the divisions has long been the most obscure part of traditional phonology. [6] [7] The finals implied by the fanqie may be divided into four broad classes based on the initials with which they co-occur. Because these classes correlate with rows in the rime tables, they are conventionally named divisions I–IV. Finals of divisions I, II and IV occur only in the corresponding rows of the rime tables, but division-III finals are spread across the second, third and fourth rows. [8] [9]

In most cases the different homophone groups within a Qieyun rhyme group are clearly distinguished by having a different initial or through the open/closed distinction in the rime tables. Pairs of syllables that are not so distinguished are known as chongniu, and occur only with certain division-III finals and with labial, velar or laryngeal initials. The distinction is reflected in the rime tables, where these pairs are divided between rows 3 and 4, and their finals are therefore known as chongniu-III and chongniu-IV finals respectively. [10] The pairs are usually distinguished in fanqie spellings:

Some Chinese authors refer to chongniu-III and chongniu-IV finals as types B and A respectively, so as to distinguish chongniu-IV finals, which are still division-III finals, from "pure" division-IV finals unrelated to chongniu. [12] [13]

The Middle Chinese notations of Li Fang-Kuei and William Baxter distinguish the chongniu-IV parts, spelt with both "j" and "i", from chongniu-III parts, spelt with only "j"; without any commitment to pronunciation: [10]

The chongniu finals of Middle Chinese
Rhyme group Li's notation Baxter's notation
Chongniu-IIIChongniu-IVChongniu-IIIChongniu-IV
支 zhī-jĕ-jiĕ-je-jie
-jwĕ-jwiĕ-jwe-jwie
脂 zhī-i-ji-ij-jij
-wi-jwi-wij-jwij
祭 jì [lower-alpha 1] -jäi-jiäi-jej-jiej
-jwäi-jwiäi-jwej-jwiej
宵 xiāo-jäu-jiäu-jew-jiew
鹽 yán-jäm/p-jiäm/p-jem/p-jiem/p
侵 qīn-jəm/p-jiəm/p-im/p-jim/p
仙 xiān-jän/t-jiän/t-jen/t-jien/t
-jwän/t-jwiän/t-jwen/t-jwien/t
真 zhēn-jĕn/t-jiĕn/t-in/t-jin/t
諄 zhūn-juĕn/t-juiĕn/t-win/t-jwin/t

Baxter identifies some other finals that behave like chongniu finals, but do not occur paired within Qieyun rhyme groups: [15]

Chongniu-like finals
Rhyme groupLi's notationBaxter's notation
Chongniu-IIIChongniu-IVChongniu-IIIChongniu-IV
庚 gēng-jɐng-jæng/k
-jwɐng-jwæng/k
清 qīng-jäng-jieng/k
-jwäng-jwieng/k
幽 yōu-jiə̆u-jiw

Each of the chongniu-IV finals falls within a single Old Chinese rhyme class, but the chongniu-III and non-chongniu parts of 支 zhī and 真 zhēn span two Old Chinese rhyme classes. [16]

Reflexes of the distinction

This distinction is generally not reflected in modern varieties of Chinese, with sporadic exceptions such as Beijing jì for chongniu-IV 悸 in contrast with guì for chongniu-III 匱 or bí for chongniu-IV 鼻 and bèi for chongniu-III 備 . [17] [18]

It is, however, reflected in the choice of Chinese characters to represent Old Japanese syllables in the Man'yōgana system, particularly the kō/otsu distinction between i1 and i2 after velars and labials. These vowels merged as i in later forms of Japanese. In almost all cases, Old Japanese syllables with i1 were transcribed with chongniu-IV words, while syllables with i2 were transcribed with chongniu-III words or other division-III words. [19] For example, ki1 was written with chongniu-IV words 祇 , 棄 or 吉 , while ki2 was written with chongniu-III words 奇 or 寄 . [20] There is little independent evidence of the pronunciation of these Old Japanese syllables, [19] but internal reconstruction suggests that i1 reflects Proto-Japonic *i, while i2 reflects *əi or *ui. [21]

The distinction is reflected most clearly in some Sino-Vietnamese and Sino-Korean readings: [22] [23]

Reflexes of chongniu pairs
TypeCharacterBeijing Guangzhou Sino-VietnameseSino-Korean [lower-alpha 2]
chongniu-III 碑 bēibei1bipi
chongniu-IV 卑 bēibei1tipi
chongniu-III 珉 mínman4mânmin
chongniu-IV 民 mínman4dânmin
chongniu-III 愆 qiānhin1khiênken
chongniu-IV 遣 qiǎnhin2khiểnkyen
chongniu-III 奄 yānjim1yêmem
chongniu-IV 厭 yànjim3yếmyem

In Sino-Vietnamese, labial initials have become dentals before division-IV chongniu finals, possibly reflecting an earlier palatal element. [24] Even so, the labial initials of some Chongniu-IV words remained labials in Sino-Vietnamese instead of becoming dentals; for instances: "narrow" 褊 EMCh pjianʼ > Beijing biăn vs. SV biển [lower-alpha 3] , "stab, quick" 剽 EMCh *pʰjiawʰ > Beijing piào vs. SV phiếu, "gourd" 瓢 EMCh bjiaw > Beijing piáo vs. SV biều, and "cotton" 棉 EMCh. mjian > Beijing mián vs. SV miên. This phenomenon can be explained as resulting from "chronological and possibly also stylistic differences": some words might have been borrowed early, when chongniu-III vs. chongniu-IV distinction did not manifest yet as palatisation in Chinese or could not yet be represented as palatalisation in Vietnamese; others might have been borrowed late, when the distinction had been lost. [25]

Sino-Korean shows a palatal glide where division-IV chongniu finals follow velar or laryngeal initials. [24]

Interpretations

The nature of the distinction within Middle Chinese is disputed, with some scholars ascribing it to a medial and others to the main vowel. [26]

Most linguists now accept the proposal of Sergei Yakhontov that Middle Chinese syllables in division II had a medial *-r- in Old Chinese. [27] [lower-alpha 4] William Baxter, following earlier ideas of Edwin Pulleyblank, suggested that chongniu-III syllables had medials *-rj- in Old Chinese, while their chongniu-IV counterparts had a medial *-j- before a front vowel. [28] The later revision by Baxter and Laurent Sagart elides the *-j- medial, treating such "Type B" syllables as unmarked, in contrast to "Type A" syllables, which they reconstructed with pharyngealized initials. In this system, Middle Chinese chongniu-III or chongniu-IV syllables are all Type B syllables, which were distinguished by the presence or absence, respectively, of a medial *-r- in Old Chinese. [29]

Notes

  1. ↑ This final occurs only in the departing tone. [14]
  2. ↑ Korean forms are given using the Yale romanization of Korean, which is standard for linguistic work.
  3. ↑ mistranscribed as biên in Meier & Peyrot (2017) & Shimizu (2012)
  4. ↑ Yakhontov originally spelled this medial as *-l. [27]

Related Research Articles

A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. It is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins. Syllables are often considered the phonological "building blocks" of words. They can influence the rhythm of a language, its prosody, its poetic metre and its stress patterns. Speech can usually be divided up into a whole number of syllables: for example, the word ignite is made of two syllables: ig and nite.

Middle Chinese Pronunciation system for Chinese recorded in the Qieyun dictionary (601)

Middle Chinese or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the Qieyun, a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The Swedish linguist Bernard Karlgren believed that the dictionary recorded a speech standard of the capital Chang'an of the Sui and Tang dynasties. However, based on the more recently recovered preface of the Qieyun, most scholars now believe that it records a compromise between northern and southern reading and poetic traditions from the late Northern and Southern dynasties period. This composite system contains important information for the reconstruction of the preceding system of Old Chinese phonology.

Fanqie is a method in traditional Chinese lexicography to indicate the pronunciation of a monosyllabic character by using two other characters, one with the same initial consonant as the desired syllable and one with the same rest of the syllable . The method was introduced in the 3rd century AD and used in dictionaries and commentaries on the classics until the early 20th century.

A rime table or rhyme table is a Chinese phonological model, tabulating the syllables of the series of rime dictionaries beginning with the Qieyun (601) by their onsets, rhyme groups, tones and other properties. The method gave a significantly more precise and systematic account of the sounds of those dictionaries than the previously used fǎnqiè analysis, but many of its details remain obscure. The phonological system that is implicit in the rime dictionaries and analysed in the rime tables is known as Middle Chinese, and is the traditional starting point for efforts to recover the sounds of early forms of Chinese. Some authors distinguish the two layers as Early and Late Middle Chinese respectively.

<i>Qieyun</i> Chinese rhyme dictionary

The Qieyun is a Chinese rhyme dictionary, published in 601 during the Sui dynasty. The book was a guide to proper reading of classical texts, using the fanqie method to indicate the pronunciation of Chinese characters. The Qieyun and later redactions, notably the Guangyun, are important documentary sources used in the reconstruction of historical Chinese phonology.

<i>Guangyun</i>

The Guangyun is a Chinese rime dictionary that was compiled from 1007 to 1008 under the patronage of Emperor Zhenzong of Song. Its full name was Dà Sòng chóngxiū guǎngyùn. Chen Pengnian and Qiu Yong (邱雍) were the chief editors.

Rime dictionary Ancient type of Chinese dictionary that collates characters by tone and rhyme

A rime dictionary, rhyme dictionary, or rime book is an ancient type of Chinese dictionary that collates characters by tone and rhyme, instead of by radical. The most important rime dictionary tradition began with the Qieyun (601), which codified correct pronunciations for reading the classics and writing poetry by combining the reading traditions of north and south China. This work became very popular during the Tang dynasty, and went through a series of revisions and expansions, of which the most famous is the Guangyun (1007–1008).

Historical Chinese phonology deals with reconstructing the sounds of Chinese from the past. As Chinese is written with logographic characters, not alphabetic or syllabary, the methods employed in Historical Chinese phonology differ considerably from those employed in, for example, Indo-European linguistics; reconstruction is more difficult because, unlike Indo-European languages, no phonetic spellings were used.

Tangut language Extinct Sino-Tibetan language

Tangut is an extinct language in the Sino-Tibetan language family.

Sino-Xenic or Sinoxenic pronunciations are regular systems for reading Chinese characters in Japan, Korea and Vietnam, originating in medieval times and the source of large-scale borrowings of Chinese words into the Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese languages, none of which are genetically related to Chinese. The resulting Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean and Sino-Vietnamese vocabularies now make up a large part of the lexicons of these languages. The pronunciation systems are used alongside modern varieties of Chinese in historical Chinese phonology, particularly the reconstruction of the sounds of Middle Chinese. Some other languages, such as Hmong–Mien and Kra–Dai languages, also contain large numbers of Chinese loanwords but without the systematic correspondences that characterize Sino-Xenic vocabularies.

<i>Yunjing</i>

The Yunjing is one of the two oldest existing examples of a Chinese rhyme table – a series of charts which arrange Chinese characters in large tables according to their tone and syllable structures to indicate their proper pronunciations. Current versions of the Yunjing date to AD 1161 and 1203 editions published by Zhang Linzhi (張麟之). The original author(s) and date of composition of the Yunjing are unknown. Some of its elements, such as certain choices in its ordering, reflect features particular to the Tang dynasty, but no conclusive proof of an actual date of composition has yet been found.

Old Mandarin or Early Mandarin was the speech of northern China during the Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty and the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. New genres of vernacular literature were based on this language, including verse, drama and story forms, such as the qu and sanqu.

Scholars have attempted to reconstruct the phonology of Old Chinese from documentary evidence. Although the writing system does not describe sounds directly, shared phonetic components of the most ancient Chinese characters are believed to link words that were pronounced similarly at that time. The oldest surviving Chinese verse, in the Classic of Poetry (Shijing), shows which words rhymed in that period. Scholars have compared these bodies of contemporary evidence with the much later Middle Chinese reading pronunciations listed in the Qieyun rime dictionary published in 601 AD, though this falls short of a phonemic analysis. Supplementary evidence has been drawn from cognates in other Sino-Tibetan languages and in Min Chinese, which split off before the Middle Chinese period, Chinese transcriptions of foreign names, and early borrowings from and by neighbouring languages such as Hmong–Mien, Tai and Tocharian languages.

The Karlgren–Li reconstruction of Middle Chinese was a representation of the sounds of Middle Chinese devised by Bernhard Karlgren and revised by Li Fang-Kuei in 1971, remedying a number of minor defects.

William H. Baxter's transcription for Middle Chinese is an alphabetic notation recording phonological information from medieval sources, rather than a reconstruction. It was introduced by Baxter as a reference point for his reconstruction of Old Chinese phonology.

In Middle Chinese, the phonological system of medieval rime dictionaries and rime tables, the final is the rest of the syllable after the initial consonant. This analysis is derived from the traditional Chinese fanqie system of indicating pronunciation with a pair of characters indicating the sounds of the initial and final parts of the syllable respectively, though in both cases several characters were used for each sound. Reconstruction of the pronunciation of finals is much more difficult than for initials due to the combination of multiple phonemes into a single class, and there is no agreement as to their values. Because of this lack of consensus, understanding of the reconstruction of finals requires delving into the details of rime tables and rime dictionaries.

Although Old Chinese is known from written records beginning around 1200 BC, the logographic script provides much more indirect and partial information about the pronunciation of the language than alphabetic systems used elsewhere. Several authors have produced reconstructions of Old Chinese phonology, beginning with the Swedish sinologist Bernard Karlgren in the 1940s and continuing to the present day. The method introduced by Karlgren is unique, comparing categories implied by ancient rhyming practice and the structure of Chinese characters with descriptions in medieval rhyme dictionaries, though more recent approaches have also incorporated other kinds of evidence.

Proto-Min is a comparative reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Min group of varieties of Chinese. Min varieties developed in the relative isolation of the Chinese province of Fujian and eastern Guangdong, and have since spread to Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and other parts of the world. They contain reflexes of distinctions not found in Middle Chinese or most other modern varieties, and thus provide additional data for the reconstruction of Old Chinese.

Eastern Han Chinese Form of Chinese spoken in the Eastern Han period

Eastern Han Chinese or Later Han Chinese is the stage of the Chinese language revealed by poetry and glosses from the Eastern Han period . It is considered an intermediate stage between Old Chinese and the Middle Chinese of the 7th-century Qieyun dictionary.

Shǒuwēn was a 9th-century Buddhist Chinese monk credited with the invention of the analysis of Middle Chinese as having 36 initials, later ubiquitously used by the rime tables. However, the Dunhuang fragment Pelliot chinois 2012, held at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, which operates using an earlier tradition of 30 initials, credits him as his author. Pulleyblank, noting that this fragment does recognize a distinction between labial stops and labiodental fricatives despite not enumerating the latter among the 30 initials, suspects that Shǒuwēn out of deference to the Qieyun tradition decided not to list these initials although he clearly recognized them.

References

  1. ↑ Baxter (1992), pp. 33–35, 822.
  2. ↑ Norman (1988), p. 27.
  3. ↑ Baxter (1992), p. 33.
  4. ↑ Norman (1988), pp. 27–28.
  5. ↑ Pulleyblank (1984), pp. 142–143.
  6. 1 2 Norman (1988), p. 32.
  7. ↑ Branner (2006), p. 15.
  8. ↑ Branner (2006), pp. 32–34.
  9. ↑ Baxter (1992), pp. 63–81.
  10. 1 2 Baxter (1992), p. 75.
  11. ↑ Baxter (1977), pp. 60–61.
  12. ↑ Branner (2006), p. 25.
  13. ↑ Shimizu (2012), p. 3.
  14. ↑ Baxter (1992), p. 80.
  15. ↑ Baxter (1992), pp. 80–81.
  16. ↑ Baxter (1992), pp. 283–284.
  17. ↑ Schuessler (2009), pp. 8–9.
  18. ↑ Pan & Zhang (2015), pp. 86–87.
  19. 1 2 Baxter (1977), p. 77.
  20. ↑ Shimizu (2012), pp. 1–2.
  21. ↑ Frellesvig 2010, p. 45.
  22. ↑ Baxter (1977), pp. 85–86.
  23. ↑ Baxter (1992), pp. 75–79.
  24. 1 2 Baxter (1992), p. 283.
  25. ↑ Meier & Peyrot (2017), pp. 12–14.
  26. ↑ Baxter (1992), pp. 282–286.
  27. 1 2 Baxter (1992), p. 261.
  28. ↑ Baxter (1992), pp. 280–281.
  29. ↑ Baxter & Sagart (2014), p. 216.

Works cited

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.