표준중국어 음절구조와 활음의 위치

Abstract

This article points out some problems of various theories on the syllabic structure of Modern Mandarin. They include the conventional view presented in (1), Duanmu’s (2007) revised structure shown in (5-7), and Lin’s (2007) illustrated in (8, 11). The author rejects Lin’s structure because it can have two vowels as nuclei. He disputes Duanmu’s distinction between the full and weak syllables. According to Duanmu, a full syllable must have a coda while a weak syllable should not. Under his theory, the nucleus of a heavy syllable with zero coda must to be changed to a long vowel, compared to the same one with a coda. Since vowel length plays no role in semantic distinction in Mandarin, Duanmu’s two tracks of structure are not so plausible. In addition, unlike the pre-nucleus glide, his syllabic structure treats post-nucleus glide as a vowel that occupies the node of coda. This is not only an inconsistent treatment of glides but violates the definition of glide. The author disputes also the ideas which consider the post-nuclear glide as a part of nucleus as is illustrated in (18bd) because there are no sufficient reasons to combine the nucleus and the post-nucleus glide. To conclude, the author proposes a new structure Mandarin in (20), which can be illustrated as (21) in short.