Questions tagged [phonology]
Phonology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the systematic organization of sounds in languages. It has traditionally focused largely on study of the systems of phonemes in particular languages, but it may also cover any linguistic analysis either at a level beneath the word or at all levels of language where sound is considered to be structured for conveying linguistic meaning.
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Why is 网 considered inside the 亡 phonetic series on wikitionary?
On wikitionary's page about phonetic series under the 亡 entry we find 网 even though 网 is described to be a pictogram on it's own wikitionary page.
If we look on wikipedia's page about Phonetic series, ...
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Is there an equivalent to Harvard Sentences in Chinese?
The Harvard sentences - Wikipedia are 72 lists of 10 English sentences that:
Are phonetically balanced in the sense that the phonemes that are used in the sentences appear at the same frequency they ...
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Why Pinyin's "声母" and "韵母" were translated as "initials" and "finals"?
Why Pinyin's "声母" and "韵母" were translated as "Initials" and "Finals", but not as "sound-mother" and "rime-mother"? What is the meaning of &...
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Is there sometimes a sentence final tone neutralization on the phonetic level
I've been practicing tone perception but am having trouble processing tone on the final syllable in some cases. In the video https://youtu.be/2aveJrbSjAk?t=9, I can hear most of the tones no problem. ...
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For loanwords like "Facebook", which type of pronunciation is more common?
If I understand correctly, there are two approaches to pronouncing borrowed, non-transliterated words: either err on the side of approximating the foreign pronunciation, or adjust the pronunciation so ...
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Can 徐 develop a sound mo1?
徐 has initial 邪, which I don't immediate see the connection with [m]. 徐 has rhyme 鱼, which mostly developed into u(ü) and a. I cannot think of how the mo1 sound can be developed.
徐 is 形声字 (Phono-...
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What is a good Chinese Grammar book?
What is a good, comprehensive , learner friendly Chinese Grammar book, with explanations in English or German and Chinese, which also does teach phonetics and the Pinyin spelling rules?
With good and ...
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鉛 Reading Phonology
Why does this word for Lead 鉛 seem to have two different pronounciations?
In most Chinese Languages / Languages that borrowed this word ( Japanese / Korean ) they all read similar to the Middle ...
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What is the historical development of IPA for Chinese spoken language?
** This question is NOT for CSL students. The best way to learn a language is to directly follow a native speaker. A Chinese language teacher with the same native language background as the CSL ...
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Phonetic clue of characters in languages or dialects other than Mandarin?
Many characters are made up of a semantic and a phonetic part.
Is the phonetic part only valid with regards to Mandarin pronunciation?
Or not even for Mandarin in all cases?
Or does it work with for ...
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Where does the "o" sound fit into Chinese phonology? Is it a mid vowel?
So I've been looking at San Duanmu's The Phonology of Standard Chinese, and in the vowel section, the pinyin /o/ from 中 is not mentioned. An allophone of the middle vowel is described as [o], which is ...
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Discrepancies between the rimes of a character and its lower character in Guangyun?
𥏙 and 䂕, for instance, are classified into 去聲十三祭韻 according to Guangyun, while their lower characters, 吠, are classified into 去聲二十廢韻. Is there any research that provides a list of (hopefully) all ...
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Why does Mandarin Chinese have a smaller inventory of unique syllables?
From How languages compare with the number of different syllables from all words?, considering the 20,000 most frequent words in each language, Mandarin Chinese has 1274 different syllables (see also ...
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What’s the deal with the xing-type readings for 行?
How come did the readings of the xing-category appear for 行?
They make no sense. The Early Middle Chinese for “to walk” is γæng, which should give héng – and so it does, in 胻, 蘅, 桁 – even with the ...
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How can learner distinguish 察館 vs. 茶館 in Mandarin phonetically?
I like to practice my Mandarin with staff at a 茶館 (tea house). After my months of trying, and after their months guffawing at me, they advise me that my pronunciation of 茶館 STILL sounds like 察館 (...
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erhua in loanwords — 模特兒 mótèr?
OK, so I was browsing Wiktionary — as one does — and found out about the word 模特兒 'model', which is apparently pronounced mótèr, with just 2 syllables. there's also an alternative pronunciation, mótè'...
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Which is the most frequently used tone?
The most difficult for me in learning Chinese is memorizing the correct tone.
I tried to find on web what the most frequently used tones are, but it seems to be hard to find.
I suppose if one tone is ...
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How to create a Chinese sentence using multiple different meanings of the same sounding word?
I just realized that Chinese can have several unrelated meanings under the same sound (though often they are given different Chinese characters/symbols).
For example, gān can be:
干 (to interfere, dry,...
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jiu3 pronounced as jiu4 ; linked speech feature or slip of the tongue?
Here is the intonation that is recorded in an instructional video for the clause 我已经很久都不过中秋节了 (wǒ yǐjīng hěn jiǔ dōu bú guò zhōngqiūjié le).
久 is very prominently pronounced with a descending ...
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A Cantonese-influenced Old National Pronunciation (老國音) system
I need advice/help on creating a system similar to the Old National Pronunciation system/language for a worldbuilding project called Roses, Tulips, and Liberty.
Some background: Imagines, it's a world ...
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How many syllables does Chinese have?
I'm just reading a book about China and Chinese customs from Heike Barai. She says that Chinese only has around 300 different syllables, whereas modern German has about 10 000 and I suppose English is ...
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Yue/Min/Wu/Gan/mandarin phonetic correspondance
I am looking for a table of the regular phonetic correspondances between the different chinese varieties (Yue, Wu, Gan, Min, Mandarin...). For instance I noted a g (Yue)/j(mandarin) correspondance (e....
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How to pronounce 學 "shwehh", "shoo-ehh", or "xüüehh"?
According to pinyin pronunciation guides, 學 should be pronounced x + ü + e with a rising tone. This should verbally sound something like
1) a shh- with tip of tongue close to your bottom teeth ...
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Why does "yin" (陰) comes first in "yin-yang" (陰陽)?
In the yin-yang dynamic, yang is pretty much always the dominant force: it represents the sun (the "great yang", 太陽), brightness, positivity (陽性), masculinity (the penis, 陽物), the living (陽間,...
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Reconstruction of Old Chinese "少"
There are many characters that have the initial "m-" and contain "少" as a phonetic element at the same time, such as 妙, 秒, 眇, 竗, etc. I thought this was a good reason to judge that ...
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Pronunciation of 什么
什么 (shénme) sounds to my ears more like (shéme).
Assuming I'm hearing correctly, is this just a common contraction of this word, or is the sequence "-n" + "m-" generally contracted ...
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Why one-to-many mapping between IPA and Pinyin?
I am referring to the Origin of zhuyin symbols table on Wikipedia. Under Rhymes and Medials the following 3 entries confuse me:
Zhuyin
IPA
Pinyin
ㄧ
i
i/y
ㄨ
u
u/w
ㄩ
y
ü/yu/u
Why are there multiple ...
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Does 䁤=香季切 and 侐=火季切 being separate 小韻s in 廣韻 imply anything?
Link
Is it something related to 重紐? If not, how can I interpret this?
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Why are 端母 and 知母 considered as distinct initials in Early Middle Chinese even though they share same 上字's such as 都 or 丁, while 幫母 and 非母 are not?
There are some examples such as 樁=都江, where the initial of the original character is 知母 (in modern classification) while the one of it's upper character is 端母. Meanwhile, Chen Li considered the ...
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What's the exact realization of Chinese glides (in medial position)?
While in some transcriptions you might encounter the IPA [j], [ɥ], and [w] for the medial glides, there are also transcriptions with IPA [ʲ], [ʷ] and [ᶣ].
Glides can have many interpretations ...
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What does the inital /dⁿ/ stand for?
While answering @Qiangong2's question here: Are Characters customized in different provinces due to dialectal differences? I was looking through the table on 四川方言字.
On the table the following initial ...
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Is "biang" a phonologically possible syllable in Mandarin Chinese?
One of the local specialty favourite dishes in Shaanxi province where I am now is Biángbiáng miàn.
Photo by hippietrail
The hanzi character for "biáng" is usually the focus of discusssions of this ...
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Can a neutral tone appear on a non-final syllable?
Can a neutral/fifth tone appear in a word syllable other than the last one?
If so, as a lexical tone, a sandhi tone or both? Adding a few examples would be helpful.
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How do Chinese call the sound "i"
In the Chinese language, we have a "clean i" sound (for example, when linked to "ji", "li", "pi") and a "dirty i" sound (for example, when linked to &...
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How to distinguish between homophone words 再 and 在 zài
I wonder how one can distinguish in an oral conversation between homophone words: 再 and 在, as both have the same pronunciation zài.
For example, in the sentence
Wǒ zài kàn diànyǐng.
how one can ...
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What do the /pf/ & /pfʰ/ initials sound like in Central Plains Mandarin?
I was flipping through the Xi'an dialect volume of the Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects.
On p. 206 I came across:
and on p. 207 there is:
There is the /pf/ initial and the aspirated ...
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Are `sh` and `x` really different phonemes, or just different realizations of the same phoneme?
I can't think of any minimal pairs; like shu vs. xu probably shouldn't count as a minimal pair since the vowel is different.
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Are there northern dialects which still preserve velars before front vowels?
It's well known that Modern Standard Mandarin has merged what were historically velar stops and alveolar silibants when followed by front vowels. For instance, 京 is "jing" rather than "ging", and 津 is ...
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Is there a chart of all possible Chinese syllables using Hanzi?
I have been able to find many charts that describe all possible Initial and Final combinations in pinyin, but I'm wondering if there is anything available like that that uses Hanzi only?
I made ...
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Hi. what chinese or Mandarin word sounds phonetically like the word omniyat
what chinese or Mandarin word sounds phonetically like the word omniyat. And what is the meaning of that chinese word?
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Taiwanese Guoyu vs. Putonghua 阴平/阳平 tone split?
I might be reading too much into this and seeing things that aren't there. But, I think, I'm seeing a pattern between some dialects and Mandarin. The following characters seem to have some sort of ...
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How to read these vowel diagrams?
I've come across a couple of vowel diagrams. Here one:
Here's another:
I'm not really sure how to interpenetrate these charts. Any ideas?
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Can Chinese words start with a vowel?
I've been searching around for random words. Dragon = long, green = lǜsè, river = he... I can't seem to find any words that start with a vowel.
Do any Chinese words start with a vowel?
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How is non-standard Cantonese spoken by some mainland Chinese speakers different from "standard" pronunciation?
As someone who's more or less a native Cantonese speaker, I've noticed that some speakers from mainland China (from Cantonese speaking areas) sound "weird", in that I could clearly notice a difference ...
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Tone contours along diphthongs [closed]
I'd like to know as much as possible about how tone contours (T2, T3, T4) are distributed along Mandarin/standard rhyme diphthongs, especially ai ei ao ou, with references to academic articles if ...
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What is the right spelling, 乌兹别克 or 乌孜别克?
China is a country of multiple ethnicities, some of which can also be found in its neighboring countries, like Russia and Koreas. So the same ethnic groups are named the same as that in such other ...
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What is this “XX” 開 “#” “上/平/入/去” “XX” method for describing character pronunciation?
Here is an incredibly horrible quality excerpt (read: screenshot) from 《四川邛崍油榨方言記》:
here's the highlights from 2 ər that I wanted to point out:
爾 止開三上紙日
兒 止開三平支日
而 止開三平之日
二 止開三去至日
and for contrast ...
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What's the difference between voiced and "unaspirated" consonants and how can I check if I got it correct?
I heard from somewhere that there are no voiced consonants in Mandarin. Wikipedia says that consonants like the pinyin "d", "b", "g" are "unaspirated", whatever that means...
Although my first ...
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Is Cantonese a better choice in studying classic of poetry (詩經)?
Again, I ask this question, and provide my opinion as an answer, to reply to the comment of another thread in Stack Exchange:
Pronunciation of Tang Dynasty Poetry
Now, I ask again: in studying ...
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What is the 平仄 rule in 無情對
I am fascinated by 無情對,
It is two of my attempts:
四川特產北菇 (Sichuan specialty mushroom)
三洋通用東芝 (Sanyo, GM, Toshiba)
~
今朝書店晚開 (Bookstore open late today)
現代本田日產 (Hyundai, Honda, Nissan)
(All in ...
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