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Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies
ISSN 0577-9170; DOI 10.6503/THJCS

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The Diachronic Development of Rhyme Variations in Jin-hua Wu Dialects: Evidence from Nasal Diminutives

Vol. 36 No. 2   12/2006    

Title

The Diachronic Development of Rhyme Variations in Jin-hua Wu Dialects: Evidence from Nasal Diminutives

Author

Min-hua Chiang

Genre

Article  

Pages

523-541

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PDF

Language

Chinese

Key words

nasal-ending diminutives, nasalized diminutives, Wu dialects, historical phonology, Er-suffixation, Jin-Hua dialect

Abstract

       This paper indicates that the generative phonological processes of the diminutives in the urban Jin-hua a dialect and Jin-hua Chang-shan dialect have some problems due to previous researchers who did not examine the origins of morphemes to which the diminutive is attached and also did not analyze them according to language strata. The gravest problems center on the fact that morphemes with the same finals may generate different nasalized finals after they are followed by the same nasal diminutive, and in that there seems to be no phonological rules to account for the effect which nasal diminutive suffixation has upon the vowels of the stems. This paper aims to discuss the phonological processes involved in the nasal diminutive suffixation to argue that the problems noted above are successfully resolved through historical points of view and comparisons among dialects. Furthermore, the possible phonological systems of an early stage in the Jin-hua dialect are partly reconstructed

 

 

Author: Min-hua Chiang
Genre: Article
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