Syllable structures

國

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

VN, CVG, CVN, CGV, GVG, GVN, CGVG, and CGVN. A syllable that has no coda is called an open syllable, such as a CV, GV or CGV syllable, whereas a syllable that has a coda is called a closed syllable, like CVN, CGVG or CGVN.

2.1.2 Syllable structures

In terms of traditional analysis, the syllable can be divided into two main parts:

the “initial” and the “final”. The initial means the syllable initial non-glide consonant, which can be the consonant or the nasal, while the rest of the syllable following the initial consonant is the final, which could be separated into the “medial” and the

“rime.” The medial is the glide before the nuclear vowel, and the rime consists of the nucleus and the ending. The nucleus is obligatory in every syllable whereas the initial, the medial and the ending are all optional in Mandarin. The maximal syllable is CGVX, where C is a consonant, G is a glide, V is a vowel, and X can be a glide or a nasal (cf. Lin, 1989, 2007).

Although the traditional analysis of Mandarin has been adopted for several researchers, the increasing studies reanalyze the syllable structure of Chinese with contemporary view (Duanmu, 1990, 2000; 2007; Bao, 1990, 1996; Lin, 2007).

Regarding the status of prenuclear glide, the traditional analysis considers prenuclear glide to be structurally part of the rime, whereas the contemporary view shows that the prenuclear glide can serve as either the onset of the syllable, or the secondary

‧ 國

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

articulation of the onset position (cf. Bao, 1990; Duanmu, 1990; Z. Wang, 1996). Bao (1990) proposed that the prenuclear glide formed a cluster with an initial consonant.

The prenuclear glide was argued to be part of the onset rather than the rime segment.

Based on the acoustic evidence, dialectal evidence, historical evidence and poetry rhyming patterns, Duanmu (1990) further elucidated that the prenuclear glide is the part of the onset and acts as the secondary articulations.

Since the structural status of prenuclear glides in Mandarin has been a subject of debate, more researchers attempted to resolve this problem by experimental evidence (H. S. Wang & Chang, 2001), or psycholinguistic evidence (Wan, 2002). H. S. Wang and Chang (2001) asked participants to blend two syllables into one in the first experiment, and then choose from two alternatives (i.e. prenuclear glides clustering with the onset or the rime) to break up a syllable in the second experiment. The results showed that the participants preferred to classify the glide with the rime. Therefore, H.

S. Wang and Chang (2001) treated prenuclear glides as part of the final in support of traditional analysis.

However, Wan (2002) proposed that prenuclear glides are part of initial or final depending on the place of articulation of the preceding consonant. Wan (2002) used psycholinguistic and acoustic evidence to reexamine the status of prenuclear glides from speech errors. She claimed that the glide could be syllabified in two ways in

‧ 國

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

surface phonological representation. As the glide shared the same place of articulation with the onset, the glide formed a unit with the onset as the consonant cluster.

Nevertheless, while the onset and the glide were not the same place of articulation, the glide stayed away from the onset. Wan (2002) thus concluded that whether the prenuclear formed with an onset or a rhyme largely depended on Mandarin phonotactic constrains and articulatory gestures.

The syllable-structure status of glides in the postvocalic position is faced with different analyses owing to treatments of postnuclear glides and coda nasals. As previously noted, the traditional analysis divides the syllable structure into the initial, which is the onset consonant, and the final, which consists of prenuclear glides, nuclear vowels, and either postnuclear glides or nasals. It is suggested that the postnuclear glide and the final nasal not only were in the same structure position, but were treated as codas (Cheng, 1973).

However, investigators (Lin, 1989; Bao, 1990; Chiang, 1992) described that the postnuclear glides should be considered part of the nucleus instead of the coda based on linguistic data from Taiwanese language games. Lin (1989) proposed that the vowel and ending nasal were treated as different phonetic units in the rhyme position, whereas the vowel and the postnuclear glides were treated as the same unit (i.e. a diphthong) in the nucleus position. Chung (1989) used Hakka data to claim that

‧ 國

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

postnuclear glides and postnuclear nasal consonants did not have an equal syllable-structure status. Therefore, Lin (1989) and Chung (1989) both suggested that a structure of postnuclear glides and ending nasals showed an asymmetrical behavior because the postnuclear glides were seen as part of the nucleus instead of the coda.

Furthermore, Wan (2006) attempted to examine the status of postnuclear glides and coda nasals based on a corpus of speech errors in Taiwan Mandarin. She validated speech-error data as external evidence by psycholinguistic studies, which have been used for decades in English (Fromkin, 1973; Stemberger, 1983). Wan (2006) proposed an asymmetry in the syllable structure between glides and nasals in the postvocalic position. Because postnuclear glides were derived from vowels and associated with the nuclear vowel, postvocalic glides were not as firmly affiliated with the coda structure as nasals. Besides, Chien (2011) also claimed that postnuclear glides should be treated differently from final nasals. Based on experimental elicitation of speech errors, results showed that the error frequency of the interaction between postnuclear glides and final nasals was fewer than that between final nasals and final nasals.

Consequently, these studies generally addressed that syllable structure of postnuclear glides and coda nasals did not behave in a parallel fashion.