43.33 or 33.33 — The Conflict in the Disyllabic Tone Sandhi Pattern of Linchuan Dai Huteng (hutengdai@gmail.com) UC Santa Barbara — Capital Normal University

Background Linchuan is a dialect of Gan Chinese. The earliest research on tone pattern in Linchuan “Linchuan Yinxi” [Linchuan Phonology] (Luo 1958) was written in the 1940s. Linchuan tones: I did fieldwork in Linchuan in January 2017, and analyzed the seven lexical tones in Linchuan: (1) Linchuan tones

T1 fu [31] ‘husband’ T2 fu [24] ‘fox’ T3 fu [35] ‘tiger’ T4 fu [41] ‘rich’ T5 fu [23] ‘father’ T6 fuʔ [3q] ‘happiness’ T7 fuʔ [5q] ‘abdomen’ (q=checked tone)

Tone sandhi: As syllables are juxtaposed, tones change their shapes due to the effect of neighboring tones upon one another. (Gandour 1978)

120

180

240

300

360

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

T1 Ia T2 Ib T3 IIa T4IIIa T5 IIIb T6 IVa T7 IVb

Fig. 1 Linchuan tones by F0

Question We focus on the yellow highlighted tone sandhi. 33.33 or 41.33? (3) Conflict in Linchuan’s tone sandhi T4+T4: 41+41→33.33 e.g. thoŋ33 tioŋ33 ‘weight’ 重量

41+41→41.33 e.g. tsɩ42 ȵiɛn33 ‘will’ 志愿 T4+T5: 41+23→33.33 e.g. thoŋ33 hai33 ‘important’ 重大

41+23→41.33 e.g. phau41 than33 ‘bomb’

T4+T7: 41+5q→33.33 e.g. than33 phoʔ33 ‘indifferent’ 淡薄 41+5q→41+33 e.g. han42 tshuʔ33 ‘Han nationality’ 族

Linchuan’s disyllabic tone sandhi patternLexical tones T1: 31 T2: 24 T3: 35 T4: 41 T5: 23 T6: 3q T7: 5q

T1: 31 31.31 31.24 31.35 31.33 31.33 31.3q 31.33

T2: 24 24.31 24.24 24.35 33.33 35.33 24.3q 33.33

T3: 35 35.31 35.24 35.35 35.33 35.23 35.3q 35.33

T4: 41 41.31 41.24 41.35 33.33 /41.33

33.33 /41.33 41.3q 33.33

/41.33

T5: 23 23.31 33.35 23.35 33.33 33.33 23.3q 33.33

T6: 3q 3q.31 33.35 3q.35 33.33 33.33 3q.3q 33.33

T7: 5q 5q.31 5q.24 5q.35 33.33 33.33 5q.3q 33.33

120.00

285.00

450.00

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

41+41→33.33 ‘Artificial’ 41+41Fig. 2 41+41→33.33 thoŋ33 tioŋ33 ‘weight’

120.00

285.00

450.00

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

41+41→41+33 ‘Artificial’ 41+41Fig. 3 41+41→41.33 tsɩ42 ȵiɛn33 ‘will’

Fig. 4 The Changes of Tones from MC to Linchuan

I

II

III

IV

Tone 1: 31

Tone 5: 23

Tone 3: 35

Tone 2: 24

Tone 4: 41

Tone 6: 3q

Tone 7: 5q

VL

VL VR

VD

VLVD VR

VL VR

VD

VD VR

Residuals Why this phenomenon does not happen in T4+T1: 41+31, T4+T2: 41+24, T4+T3: 41+35, T4+T6: 41+3q? Contrastive distribution: If 41+31, 41+24, 41+35 and 41+3q become 33.33, then they are confused with 41+41, 41+23, 41+5q. Does the historical phonological status of initial influences the articulation of contour tone, as the historical merger of tone is accord with certain type of initial? Probably, voiced initial does not favor the pronunciation of contour tone. Use the ‘user-optimal’ of Haspelmath (1999), the voiceless initial with contour tone “should be pronounced” without contour “in order to avoid articulatory difficulties. ” Method—Reconstruction of tonal types

The tonal types in Linchuan have correspondence with tones in Middle Chinese (MC). Tone 4 is from Proto-tones II and III in Middle Chinese (MC), as the environment of initial is different. In the conflict I analyzed, when the initial of the first syllable in the tonal combination is voiceless in MC, the tone sandhi output will be 41.33; when the initial of the first syllable in the tonal combination is voiced in MC, the tone sandhi output will be 33.33 • VL: the initial of a syllable is voiceless in MC • VD: voiced obstruent • VR: voiced resonants

Conclusion The conflict between two output forms in Linchuan disyllabic tone sandhi pattern is closely related to Historical tone merger. In the OT framework, this variation triggered by the alternation in the ranking of constraints. And the trigger of alternation is the different lexemes of lexical tones which have different historical phonology status in Middle Chinese.

Acknowledgement •Thanks to Matt Gordon, Larry Hyman, Bob Kennedy, Li Zihe, Eric Campbell, Adam Albright, Marianne Mithun, Argyro Katsika, Nate Sims, Jared Sharp, Kirsten Sakaguchi and many professors, classmates and friends who provide help to this self-conducted research.

Reference [1] Boersma & Weenink (2006); [2] Baxter (1992); [3] Chen (2000); [4] Haspelmath (1999) [6] Gandour (1978) [6] Luo (1958).