3 ms·

this smells exceptionally offtopic but if there's no phonemic -ja- then there's no reason to distinguish it from -jɛ- in a phonemic analysis, is there? although

this smells exceptionally offtopic but if there's no phonemic -ja- then there's no reason to distinguish it from -jɛ- in a phonemic analysis, is there? although i believe mandarin can be analysed as a weird two vowel system if you take this approach too far though i don't have the paper handy

thaumasiotes 4y ago
There is a /ja/ syllable. 亚，丫，鸭，呀. There is a separate /jɛ/, 也，耶. Within-syllable -jɛ- exists in yan and its "compounds" tian, mian, lian, etc; changing the final consonant to -ŋ gives you the yang / niang / liang / xiang series of syllables, which have -ja-. This would suggest that, if the vowels are to be unified into one phoneme, the realization of that phoneme is driven more by the following consonant than the preceding vowel/glide. There's something weird going on where -ɛ- in a complex syllable can appear with more onsets than -a- can. We see e.g. tie, tian, die, dian, mie, mian, bian, pian (with -ɛ-) where we don't see tia, tiang, dia, diang, mia, miang, piang (which would use -a-). xia, jia, qia are all fine, and so is niang. My working hypothesis for that would be "it's a coincidence". I believe without being able to cite anything that one reason for the spelling of yuan and similar codas with "a" is local variation in how the vowel is pronounced.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  Further note - traditional Chinese phonology categorizes syllables by their onset and rime. mian is [mjɛn], notionally m- onset and -jɛn rime. yan is [jɛn], notionally zero onset and -jɛn rime. (And analogously for many syllable series involving a glide.) One distinction that some Chinese speakers fail to make, though, is between the r- onset and what I would prefer to think of as the j- onset. Thus, for these speakers, rang / yang or rou / you are the same sound. Pinyin ran uses the standard /a/ vowel, but yan does not. I don't know whether, for speakers who don't distinguish r- from y-, a distinction remains in the vowel of ran/yan syllables.
- DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
  Local variation is indeed a hint since there are varieties that have more of an [ɑ] than an [ɛ] in <mian>, <lian> and so forth. Secondly, one can indeed analyze at least all the clearly compound finals (as opposed to the five simplex candidates, in Pinyin a, e, yi, yu, wu) as having either a high (as in, raised tongue) or a low (lowered tongue) nuclear vowel. Let's symbolize the former as ɵ and the latter as ᴀ, then Pinyin yin, yan, ying, yang can be analyzed as /iɵn/, /iᴀn/, /iɵŋ/, /iᴀŋ/. PY yong, BTW, comes out as a slightly surprising /üɵŋ/ (with /üᴀŋ/ missing), yue as /üɵ/ (with /üᴀ/ missing), yun and yuan as /üɵn/ and /üᴀn/. One hint that /üɵŋ/ for yong might be a good solution is the observation that Zhuyinfuhao (aka Bopomofo) writes this syllable as ㄩㄥ, which is analyzed (within this orthographic system) as ㄩㄜㆭ, so roughly PY üeng.

thaumasiotes 4y ago

There is a /ja/ syllable. 亚，丫，鸭，呀. There is a separate /jɛ/, 也，耶. Within-syllable -jɛ- exists in yan and its "compounds" tian, mian, lian, etc; changing the final consonant to -ŋ gives you the yang / niang / liang / xiang series of syllables, which have -ja-. This would suggest that, if the vowels are to be unified into one phoneme, the realization of that phoneme is driven more by the following consonant than the preceding vowel/glide. There's something weird going on where -ɛ- in a complex syllable can appear with more onsets than -a- can. We see e.g. tie, tian, die, dian, mie, mian, bian, pian (with -ɛ-) where we don't see tia, tiang, dia, diang, mia, miang, piang (which would use -a-). xia, jia, qia are all fine, and so is niang. My working hypothesis for that would be "it's a coincidence". I believe without being able to cite anything that one reason for the spelling of yuan and similar codas with "a" is local variation in how the vowel is pronounced.

thaumasiotes 4y ago
Further note - traditional Chinese phonology categorizes syllables by their onset and rime. mian is [mjɛn], notionally m- onset and -jɛn rime. yan is [jɛn], notionally zero onset and -jɛn rime. (And analogously for many syllable series involving a glide.) One distinction that some Chinese speakers fail to make, though, is between the r- onset and what I would prefer to think of as the j- onset. Thus, for these speakers, rang / yang or rou / you are the same sound. Pinyin ran uses the standard /a/ vowel, but yan does not. I don't know whether, for speakers who don't distinguish r- from y-, a distinction remains in the vowel of ran/yan syllables.
DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
Local variation is indeed a hint since there are varieties that have more of an [ɑ] than an [ɛ] in <mian>, <lian> and so forth. Secondly, one can indeed analyze at least all the clearly compound finals (as opposed to the five simplex candidates, in Pinyin a, e, yi, yu, wu) as having either a high (as in, raised tongue) or a low (lowered tongue) nuclear vowel. Let's symbolize the former as ɵ and the latter as ᴀ, then Pinyin yin, yan, ying, yang can be analyzed as /iɵn/, /iᴀn/, /iɵŋ/, /iᴀŋ/. PY yong, BTW, comes out as a slightly surprising /üɵŋ/ (with /üᴀŋ/ missing), yue as /üɵ/ (with /üᴀ/ missing), yun and yuan as /üɵn/ and /üᴀn/. One hint that /üɵŋ/ for yong might be a good solution is the observation that Zhuyinfuhao (aka Bopomofo) writes this syllable as ㄩㄥ, which is analyzed (within this orthographic system) as ㄩㄜㆭ, so roughly PY üeng.