Cover not available
Article published In:
International Journal of Chinese Linguistics
Vol. 6:2 (2019) ► pp.221–237

An unaddressed phonological contradiction

| Sussex University

There is general agreement on the main features of the process through which the phonology of modern standard Chinese has evolved over three millennia from that of Old Chinese. However, according to general linguistic theory, that phonological history is impossible: the theory claims that no human language can evolve in the manner in which Chinese is believed to have evolved. Furthermore, this particular strand of general linguistic theory has recently been corroborated through stringent statistical testing. Thus there is a glaring contradiction between two areas of scholarship, and to date there has been little recognition by the scholarly community of the need to resolve this contradiction, indeed little willingness to admit its existence. I argue that the contradiction is real and serious, and needs resolution.

Keywords: homophony avoidance, homophones, mergers, functional load, functional yield
Article outline
  • 1.A paradoxical history
  • 2.Mergers and splits
  • 3.Statistical tendency versus absolute rule
  • 4.Chinese-specific paradox resolutions
  • 5.Questionable data
  • 6.Noisy data no problem?
  • 7.Potential falsifiers
  • 8.A call to arms
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 January 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijchl.19007.sam
References

References

Baerman, M.
(2011) Defectiveness and homophony avoidance. Journal of Linguistics, 471, 1–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baxter, W. H.
(1992) A handbook of Old Chinese phonology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Behr, W.
(2015) Comments on Sampson 2015. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 431, 719–32. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, J.
(2002) Word frequency and context of use in the lexical diffusion of phonetically conditioned sound change. Language Variation and Change, 141, 261–90. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chen, M.
(1977) The time dimension: contributions toward a theory of sound change. In Wang 1977 DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Egerod, S.
(1982) How not to split tones – the Chaozhou case. 方言 1982 vol., issue 31, pp. 169–73.Google Scholar
Hill, N. W.
(2014) Grammatically conditioned sound change. Language and Linguistics Compass, 81, 211–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2016) A refutation of Song’s (2014) explanation of the ‘stop coda problem’ in Old Chinese. International Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 31, 270–81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D.
(2011) Thinking, fast and slow. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Kaplan, A.
(2011) How much homophony is normal? Journal of Linguistics, 471, 631–71. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2015) Reply to Sampson 2013. Diachronica, 321, 268–76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Karlgren, B.
(1954) Compendium of phonetics in Ancient and Archaic Chinese. Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 261, 211–367.Google Scholar
King, R. D.
(1967) Functional load and sound change. Language, 431, 831–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krishnamurti, Bh
(1978) Areal and lexical diffusion of sound change. Language, 541, 1–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, W.
(1981) Resolving the Neogrammarian controversy. Language, 571, 267–308. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martinet, A.
(1955) Economie des changements phonétiques. Bern: Francke.Google Scholar
Osthoff, H. & Brugman, K.
(1878) Morphologische Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiete der indogermanischen Sprachen, vol. 1. Leipzig: S. Hirzel.Google Scholar
Pulleyblank, E. G.
(1982) Review of Wang 1977. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 101, 392–416.Google Scholar
Sampson, G. R.
(2013) A counterexample to homophony avoidance. Diachronica, 301, 579–91. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2015) A Chinese phonological enigma. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 431, 679–91 & 740–53. A version is reprinted in Sampson, The linguistics delusion, Sheffield and Connecticut: Equinox 2017.Google Scholar
Schuessler, A.
(2009)  Minimal Old Chinese and Later Han Chinese: a companion to Grammata Serica Recensa. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silverman, D.
(2015) Comments on Sampson 2015. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 431, 697–702. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wang, W. S.-Y.
(1969) Competing changes as a cause of residue. Language, 451, 9–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(Ed.) (1977) The lexicon in phonological change. The Hague: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wang, W. S.-Y. & Lien Chinfa
(1993) Bidirectional diffusion in sound change. In C. Jones (Ed.), Historical linguistics: problems and perspectives. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Wedel, A., Jackson, S., & Kaplan, A.
(2013) Functional load and the lexicon: evidence that syntactic category and frequency relationships in minimal lemma pairs predict the loss of phoneme contrasts in language change. Language and Speech, 561, 395–417. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wedel, A., Kaplan, A., & Jackson, S.
(2013) High functional load inhibits phonological contrast loss: a corpus study. Cognition, 1281, 179–86. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wells, J. C.
(1982) Accents of English (31 vols). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar