Revisiting the Origins of Softened Initials and the Ninth Tone in Northern Min Dialects
There are two sets of viewpoints about the properties and causes of the softened initials and the ninth tone of the Northern Min dialects.Some scholars,most notably Jerry Norman,argue that the softened initials originated from the Proto-Min or Proto-Northern-Min and the ninth tone is a product of the tone differentiation influenced by softened initials.Other scholars object this Proto-Min theory and endeavor to explore the origin of the ninth tone from the perspective of language/dialect contact,but it is still not convincing.In the past ten years,the authors have conducted two in-depth fieldworks on the Northern Min dialects in Jian'ou,Jianyang and Shibei,focusing on phonetic experiments and comparative studies on the voiced stops and affricates in the Shibei dialect.The results show that some of the voiced stops and affricates are typically voiced,while others are breathy voiced.Moreover,a few words traditionally regarded as voiceless exhibit the phonetic features of voiced or even of breathy voiced.This paper examines the distribution features of the softened initials in the Northern Min dialects and demonstrates that the softened initials and the ninth tone,relating to the Quanqing全清and the unaspirated initials after the Quanzhuo全浊initials devoiced in the Proto-Min period,had undergone the evolvement of voiced and gradually devoiced by lexical diffusion.Those initials that had not yet devoiced or were softening have become the softened initials in contemporary Northern Min dialects.The voiced or breathy voiced caused by the voiceless-to-voiced transition of initials has resulted in a drop in fundamental frequency,which causes the ninth tone now to generally carry a low pitch.The softened initials and their accompanying ninth tone are both phonological strata of late-onset,and there is no need to formulate the Proto-Min or Proto-Northern Min for circular argumentation.
Min dialectsNorthern Min dialectsProto-Minsoftened initialsthe ninth tonevoiceless-to-voiced initial
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