Cover not available
Article published In:
International Journal of Chinese Linguistics
Vol. 3:2 (2016) ► pp.270–281

A refutation of Song’s (2014) explanation of the ‘stop coda problem’ in Old Chinese

| SOAS, University of London

Song (2014) draws renewed attention to the problem of groups of Chinese words in which the character used to write one of the words has a stop final reading in Middle Chinese but the character used to write another of the words has an open syllable reading in Middle Chinese, although the two seem to have a shared a rime in Old Chinese. She offers a new solution employing the reconstruction of voiced and voiceless stop finals in the shared ancestor of Chinese and Tibetan. Every step in Song’s reasoning is faulty and nearly every claim she makes about Tibetan is false. Haudricourt long ago solved the ‘stop coda problem’ (1954).

Keywords: Old Chinese, Sino-Tibetan, , historical phonology, Tibetan
Published online: 20 December 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijchl.3.2.04hil
References
Baxter, William H
(1992) A handbook of old Chinese phonology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baxter, William H., & Sagart, Laurent
(2014) Old Chinese: A new reconstruction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bodman, Nicholas C
(1980) Proto-Chinese and Proto-Tibetan. In Frans van Boetsem & Linda R. Wangh (Eds.), Contributions to historical linguistics: Issues and materials (pp. 34–199). Leiden: E. J. Brill.Google Scholar
Blevins, Juliette
(2004) Evolutionary phonology: The emergence of sound patterns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brugman, Karl
(1879) Zur geschichte der nominalsuffixe -as-, -jas- und -vas. Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete derIndogermanischen Sprachen, 24(1), 1–99.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan
(2012) Patterns of lexical diffusion and articulatory motivation for sound change. In Maria-Josep Solé & Daniel Recasens (Eds.), The initiation of sound change: Perception, production and social factors (pp. 211–234). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Lyle
(2004) Historical linguistics: An introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Crowley, Terry, & Bowern, Claire
(2010) An introduction to historical linguistics (4th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Egerod, Søren
(1982) How not to split tones—the Chaozhou case. Fangyan, 31, 169–173.Google Scholar
Gong, Hwang-cheng
(2002[1995]) The system of finals in Proto-Sino-Tibetan. In William S.Y. Wang (Ed.), The ancestry of the Chinese language (Journal of Chinese linguistics. Monograph series 8, pp. 41-92). Berkeley: Project on Linguistic Analysis, University of California. Reprinted in 漢藏語硏究論文集 Collected Papers on Sino-Tibetan Linguistics. Taipei: 中央硏究院語言學硏究所籌備處, 79–124.Google Scholar
Haudricourt, André-Georges
(1954) De l’origine des tons en vietnamien. Journal Asiatique, 2421, 69–82.Google Scholar
Hill, Nathan W
(2005) Once more on the letter འ. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, 28(2), 107–137.Google Scholar
(2007) Aspirated and unaspirated voiceless consonants in old Tibetan. 語言暨語言學 Languages and Linguistics, 8(2), 471–493.Google Scholar
(2009) Tibetan <ḥ-> as a plain initial and its place in Old Tibetan Phonology. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, 32(1), 115–140.Google Scholar
(2012) The six vowel hypothesis of Old Chinese in comparative context. Bulletin of Chinese Linguistics, 6(2), 1–69. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2014a) Tibeto-Burman *dz- > Tibetan z- and related proposals.’ In Richard VanNess Simmons & Newell Ann van Auken (Eds.), Studies in Chinese and Sino-Tibetan linguistics: Dialect, phonology, transcription and text (pp. 167–178.). Tapei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica.Google Scholar
(2014b) Grammatically conditioned sound change. Language and Linguistics Compass, 8(6), 211–229. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hock, Hans Heinrich
(1991) Principles of historical linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jaxontov, Sergej Evgenejvič
(1978-1979) Old Chinese phonology. Early China, 41, 37–40. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Karlgren, Bernhard
(1923) Analytic dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese. Paris: Paul Geuthner.Google Scholar
Laufer, Berthold
(1914) Bird divination among the Tibetans (notes on document Pelliot no 3530, with a study of Tibetan phonology of the ninth century). T’oung Pao, 15, 1–110. Hartmut, Walravens & Lokesh Chandra (Eds.), Sino-Tibetan Studies, vol 21. New Delhi: Rakesh Goel. 354–463.Google Scholar
Li, Fang-Kuei
李方桂 (1971) 〈上古音研究〉. 《清華學報》新, 91, 1–61.Google Scholar
Li, Fang-Kuei 李方桂
(1974–1975) Studies on archaic Chinese. Monumenta Serica, 311, 219–87 (translation of Li 1971 by Gilbert L. Mattos). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martin, Samuel E
(1987) The Japanese language through time. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Mazaudon, Martine, & John B. Lowe
. (ms. 1994) Regularity and exceptions in sound change. In Marc Domenici & Didier Demolin (Eds.), Investigations in sound change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (The volume appears to remain unpublished, but the article is on the Internet)Google Scholar
Miller, Roy Andrew
(1976) Studies in the grammatical tradition in Tibet. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1993) Prolegomena to the first two Tibetan grammatical treatises. (Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 30.) Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien.Google Scholar
Pulleyblank, Edwin G
(1978) Abruptness and gradualness in phonological change. In Mohammed A. Jazayery, et al. (Eds.), Linguistic and literary studies. Vol 3. historical and comparative linguistics. The Hague: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1982) Review of W. Wang (1977). Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 101, 39–416.Google Scholar
Ringe, Don, & Joseph E. Eska
(2012) Historical linguistics: Toward a twenty-first century reintegration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schuessler, Axel
(2007) ABC etymological dictionary of Old Chinese. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.Google Scholar
(2009) Minimal Old Chinese and later Han Chinese. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Song, Chenqing
(2014) Stop codas in Old Chinese and proto sino-tibetan: A lexical diffusion analysis. International Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 1(1), 96–135. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Starostin, SergeiСтаростин, Сергей Анатольевич
(1989) Реконструкция Древнекитайской Фонологической Системы. Moscow: Hayкa.Google Scholar
Verhagen, Pieter C
(1993) A history of Sanskrit grammatical literature in Tibet. Volume 1 Transmission of the canonical literature. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
(2001) A history of Sanskrit grammatical literature in Tibet. Volume 2: Assimilation into indigenous scholarship. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Wang, William
(Ed.) (1977) The Lexicon in phonological change. The Hague: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Yisun
(1985) Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo. Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khaṅ.Google Scholar
Zhengzhang, Shangfang
(2000) The phonological system of Old Chinese. Paris: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Centre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l’Asie Orientale.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Jacques, Guillaume
2021. Review of Hill (2019): The Historical Phonology of Tibetan, Burmese, and Chinese. Journal of Historical Linguistics 11:1 ► pp. 143 ff. DOI logo
List, Johann-Mattis
2019. Beyond edit distances: Comparing linguistic reconstruction systems. Theoretical Linguistics 45:3-4 ► pp. 247 ff. DOI logo
Sampson, Geoffrey
2019. An unaddressed phonological contradiction. International Journal of Chinese Linguistics 6:2 ► pp. 221 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 1 june 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.