A Handbook Of Old Chinese Phonology

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

A one-stop, comprehensive account of the key developments in the phonological history of Chinese.

The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Linguistics offers a broad and comprehensive coverage of the entire field from a multi-disciplinary perspective. All chapters are contributed by leading scholars in their respective areas. This Handbook contains eight sections: history, languages and dialects, language contact, morphology, syntax, phonetics and phonology, socio-cultural aspects and neuro-psychological aspects. It provides not only a diachronic view of how languages evolve, but also a synchronic view of how languages in contact enrich each other by borrowing new words, calquing loan translation and even developing new syntactic structures. It also accompanies traditional linguistic studies of grammar and phonology with empirical evidence from psychology and neurocognitive sciences. In addition to research on the Chinese language and its major dialect groups, this handbook covers studies on sign languages and non-Chinese languages, such as the Austronesian languages spoken in Taiwan.

Although long out of date, Bernard Karlgren’s (1957) remains the most convenient work for looking up Middle Chinese (ca. A.D. 600) and Old Chinese (before 200 B.C.) reconstructions of all graphs that occur in literature from the beginning of writing (ca. 1250 B.C.) down to the third century B.C. In the present volume, Axel Schuessler provides a more current reconstruction of Old Chinese, limiting it, as far as possible, to those post-Karlgrenian phonological features of Old Chinese that enjoy some consensus among today’s investigators. At the same time, the updating of the material disregards more speculative theories and proposals. Schuessler refers to these minimal forms as "Minimal Old Chinese" (OCM). He bases OCM on Baxter’s 1992 reconstructions but with some changes, mostly notational. In keeping with its minimal aspect, the OCM forms are kept as simple as possible and transcribed in an equally simple notation. Some issues in Old Chinese phonology still await clarification; hence interpolations and proposals of limited currency appear in this update. Karlgren’s Middle Chinese reconstructions, as emended by Li Fang-kuei, are widely cited as points of reference for historical forms of Chinese as well as dialects. This emended Middle Chinese is also supplied by Schuessler. Another important addition to Karlgren’s work is an intermediate layer midway between the Old and Middle Chinese periods known as "Later Han Chinese" (ca. second century A.D.) The additional layer makes this volume a useful resource for those working on Han sources, especially poetry. This book is intended as a "companion" to the original Grammata Serica Recensa and therefore does not repeat other information provided there. Matters such as English glosses and references to the earliest occurrence of a graph can be looked up in Grammata Serica Recensa itself or in other relevant dictionaries. The great accomplishment of this companion volume is to update an essential reference and thereby fulfill the need for an accessible and user-friendly source for citing the various historically reconstructed stages of Chinese.

This book introduces a new linguistic reconstruction of the phonology, morphology, and lexicon of Old Chinese, the language of the earliest Chinese classical texts (1st millennium BCE).

As an important introduction to the phonological history of Chinese, this title explores the phonological systems of the Chinese language and explains basic concepts, materials and methodologies. Unlike many historical accounts, this book adopts a reverse chronological sequence – starting with the phonology of Modern Mandarin and modern Chinese dialects, then looking back on Early Mandarin and Middle Chinese, and ultimately ending with Old Chinese phonology. This arrangement makes the book reasonably approachable to both professionals and general readers, building up knowledge along an ascending order of difficulty, from familiar, observable facts to theoretical, speculative hypotheses. Based on the extant studies and two essential types of rhyme materials, the book reconstructs the speech sounds of Middle and Old Chinese, in terms of initials, finals and tones. It also analyses the transition and evolution of phonological systems of the Chinese language in different periods. Marking the beginning of historical Chinese phonological studies and drawing on modern Western linguistics, this book will serve as an essential read for students and researchers of Chinese language, Chinese linguistics and especially historical Chinese phonology.

"As an important introduction to the phonological history of Chinese, this title explores the phonological systems of the Chinese language and explains basic concepts, materials, and methodologies. Unlike many historical accounts, this book adopts a reverse chronological sequence - starting with the phonology of Modern Mandarin and modern Chinese dialects, then looking back on Early Mandarin and Middle Chinese, and ultimately ending with Old Chinese phonology. This arrangement makes the book reasonably approachable to both professionals and general readers, building up knowledge along an ascending order of difficulty, from familiar, observable facts to theoretical, speculative hypotheses. Based on the extant studies and two essential types of rhyme materials, the book reconstructs the speech sounds of Middle and Old Chinese, in terms of initials, finals and tones. It also analyses the transition and evolution of phonological systems of the Chinese language in different periods. Marking the beginning of historical Chinese phonological studies and drawing on modern Western linguistics, this book will serve as an essential read for students and researchers of Chinese language, Chinese linguistics, and especially historical Chinese phonology"--

This comprehensive study of Chinese phonology covers both factual description and theoretical analyses. In addition, efforts have been made to avoid unecessary jargon and to introduce relevant theories in a non-technical way.