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Monosyllabic word merger in Mandarin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2005

Shu-Chuan Tseng
Shu-Chuan Tseng
Affiliation:
Academia Sinica
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Abstract

Spoken language reduction in spontaneous speech constitutes an important part of the process of language change. Utilizing a Mandarin corpus, this article examines monosyllabic word merger with pronouns in the first syllable position. The shortened form marks a respective vocalic or consonantal element stemming from the source syllables. This article proposes that there exists a target syllable for a pair of monosyllabic words, but it is not unique. Depending on the syllable structure of the source syllables, different lines of developments of target syllables are possible. When the combination of the source syllables allows a development into a well-formed Mandarin syllable, the output is a good candidate for a coalescent compound. Furthermore, when the immediately neighboring vocalic parts constitute a front-back contrast or they are identical, it is likely that word merger is produced. Durational results also show that a monosyllabic word merger is usually longer than a single syllable.The author would like to thank the reviewers of the journal Language Variation and Change and two of my colleagues, Professor Ying-chin Lin and Professor Jackson T.-S. Sun, for their constructive comments. The study presented in this article was financially supported by the National Science Council, grant NSC-92-2411-H-001-075 and by the Ministry of Education, grant 91-E-FA06-4-4.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , October 2005 , pp. 231 - 256
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

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