Scenarios of change in Chinese dialectology

Abstract

Abstract Alternative explanatory hypotheses covering three problematical areas in Chinese dialectology are presented, and, on the basis of the inadequacies in some earlier formulations, new possibilities are explored. First, an examination of the development of tones and their relation to phonation types and voicing in initial consonants shows that 1) phonation types and devoicing of the initials interact to produce the occurring tonal systems, and 2) neither the intrinsic phonetic effects nor the simple phonological categorization of voiced consonants is sufficient to explain the lowered allotones of the basic four tones. Second, evidence is presented to the effect that both the peculiar retroflex dental series and the palatal affricate series of Middle Chinese may have originated from velars, i.e., roughly speaking *ki- > *tçi : *ky- > ti- . Third, the Princeton Hypothesis advocates the possibility that Wu, Xiang and Min are more closely related to each other than to any other dialects in China.