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Article published In: Language and Linguistics
Vol. 22:1 (2021) ► pp.71–110

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Diverse sources and an internal foundation for voiced onsets in Northern Mǐn

 | Christopher Newport University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

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Published online: 16 December 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00078.smi
Abstract
The voiced onsets and associated tonal reflexes of Northern Mǐn (NM), motivation for Norman’s (. 1973. Tonal development in Min. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 1(2). 222–238.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; . 1974. The initials of Proto-Min. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 2(1). 27–36.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) proto-Mǐn “softened” stops and affricates, remain a subject of controversy. Following a brief introduction (§ 1), I begin by reviewing the various apparent sources of voiced onsets in NM, including old complex onsets, non-Sinitic substrate, voicing alternations, and late koine material (§ 2). I then take up Akitani, Hiroyuki. 2008. Minbeiqu san xianshi fangyan yanjiu [Study of the dialects of three districts of the Northern Min area]. Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar colloquial glossary of Shíbēi 石陂 and Norman, Jerry. 1969. The Kienyang dialect of Fukien. Berkeley: University of California. (Doctoral dissertation.)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar of Jiànyáng 建陽, outlining on this basis an adjusted account of the subgroup’s development: pre-PNM preserved early Sinitic voiced onsets in Tone A2, with a conditioned split isolating voiced stops in so-called Yángpíng yǐ 陽平乙, here “A2+” (§ 3). It was this conservative feature which allowed items in § 2 to take on voiced onsets across tonal categories, at times leading to further splits. A conclusion considers Mǐn more generally, proposing that the voicing alternants of Huang Chin-wen (2001a) may be NM reflections of group-wide tone sandhi processes (§ 4).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Multiple sources of voiced onsets in NM
    • 2.1Source 1: Complex onset configurations
    • 2.2Source 2: Local and substrate words
    • 2.3Source 3: Voiced members of NM voiceless-voiced alternant pairs
    • 2.4Source 4: Voiced-onset koine loans
    • 2.5Towards a fuller solution to NM onset voicing
  • 3.NM in light of historical lower register voiced onsets in Shíbēi and Jiànyáng
    • 3.1Tone C2 D- in Shíbēi
    • 3.2Tones B2 and D2 D- in Shíbēi
    • 3.3Tone A2 D- in Shíbēi
    • 3.4The Jiànyáng historical lower register in Norman (1969) and a new NM model
  • 4.Stress and sandhi: Northern Mǐn as typical Mǐn with a twist
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
References (55)
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