Title

Articulatory Characteristics of the Coronal Consonants in Malaysian Mandarin: With Special Reference to the Non-“Canonical” Sibilants

Author

Huang Ting, Chang Yueh-chin, Hsieh Feng-fan

Genre

Article

Pages

743-783

Download

PDF

Language

English

Key words

Malaysian Mandarin, coronal consonants, sibilants, palatography, linguography, language contact

Abstract

 This study is an articulatory investigation of the coronal consonants in Malaysian Mandarin, with special reference to the non-“canonical” realization of the sibilants. Our principal findings are: (i) d is apico-laminal dentialveolo-alveolar [t], (ii) s and sh are mostly laminal alveolar [s̻], and z, zh are the same as those of the corresponding fricatives, (iii) x has two phonetic variants: laminal alveolar [ɕ] (“canonical”) and laminal (denti-)alveolar [ɕ̘] (non-“canonical”, fronted), and (iv) j, as compared to z and zh, has a wider midsagittal contact, i.e., apical dentialveoloalveolar [tɕ]. Another important new finding is that the two variants of x are contextually conditioned. Specifically, the high front vowel [i] and the palatal glide [j] often co-occur with the non-“canonical”, fronted x (i.e., [ɕ̘]), while the “canonical” [ɕ] is found elsewhere. The phenomenon in question is attributable to language contactinduced sound change.