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Language and Linguistics
Vol. 25:1 (2024) ► pp.80–122

Sino-Tibetan *w in Tibetan and Old Chinese

| Wartburg College

From the perspective of Baxter’s (1992) Old Chinese (OC, which is generally followed by Schuessler 2009), the fate of a putative Sino-Tibetan (ST) *w in Tibetan and Old Chinese is quite straight-forward: In Tibetan *w was deleted everywhere in all environments; in word-initial position loss of *w‑ resulted in (smooth) vocalic onset, it is argued here that this feature is represented by the letter ’a-chung, e.g. ’oŋ ‘come’ from *waŋ; some such words have developed a new, or alternative, y-initial (e.g. yoŋ beside ’oŋ). Vocalic onset (with ’a-chung) is also the outcome of loss of other initial consonants (e.g. suffix ’u from bu). In Old Chinese *w survived only as part of labiovelars, in absolute word initial position (later Middle Chinese initial jwi̯-), and in configurations *hw‑ (voiceless *w), *ʔw‑ and *sw‑ (s-prefix). Drawn into the discussions are side-issues, like the elimination of *ɦ‑ from the Old Chinese phonemic inventory; OC final *-r metathesis, monophthongization in closed syllables, ST labiovelars, as well as a number of new etymologies. This paper confirms by and large the conclusions of Handel (2009) and Jacques (2013), but with some adjustments and elaborations.

Keywords: Old Chinese, Written Tibetan, ’a-chung , Sino-Tibetan *w , Tibetan wa ‘fox’, Sino-Tibetan ‘friend’
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Preliminaries
  • 2.Medial Sino-Tibetan/Tibeto-Burman *-w‑ in Written Tibetan and Old Chinese
    • 2.1Middle Chinese medial ‑w-/-u-
    • 2.2Medial *-w‑ after velar initials, followed by /i/: *Kwi(C)
    • 2.3Medial *-w‑ after non-velar initials, followed by /i/
    • 2.4Medial *-w- after velar initials, followed by /a/, /ǝ/ or /e/: *Kw-
    • 2.5Medial *-w‑ after non-velar initials, followed by /a/, /ǝ/ or /e/: *Twa(-), *Twǝ(-)
    • 2.6Monophthongization and metathesis in closed syllables
    • 2.7Tibetan wa-zur, suffix ‑a
  • 3.Initial ST *w- in Old Chinese
    • 3.1OC *ʔw‑ / *ʔu‑ from ST *w-?
  • 4.TB initial *w‑ in Written Tibetan
    • 4.1Vocalic onset in Written Tibetan
      • 4.1.1The Tibetan letter ʔa-chen
      • 4.1.2The letter ’a-chung
      • 4.1.3 ’a-chung as smooth vocalic onset
      • 4.1.4Velar and uvular fricatives for ’a-chung
      • 4.1.5 ’a-chung as vowel support and diacritic
      • 4.1.6Smooth vocalic onset (written with ’a-chung) resulting from loss of an initial consonant
    • 4.2WT initial ’a-chung after loss of TB or ST *w-
    • 4.3Initial WT y‑ as hiatus deleter in place of earlier w-
    • 4.4WT initial w‑ and the second deletion of w: wa ‘fox’ and ‘gutter’
  • 5.OC *gwr‑ vs. TB *grw-
  • 6.ST / TB ‑wa‑ / ‑wǝ‑ with complete loss of w in Tibetan
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 2 January 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00150.sch
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