Aspects of segmental phonology and Chinese syllable structure

The syllable has been recognized as a prosodic unit as demonstrated in the work of Kahn (1976), Steriade (1982), Levin (1985), McCarthy and Prince (1986), and Ito (1986), among others. However, the exact composition of the syllable is still controversial. The theory of Prosodic Morphology and Phonology recognizes the prosodic units of Prosodic Word, Foot, Syllable, and Mora (McCarthy and Prince 1986, Ito 1986, Zec 1988), but not the syllable internal unit of Rime. The goal of this dissertation is to demonstrate that syllable internal organization is hierarchical and the organizational unit Rime should be incorporated into the Prosodic Hierarchy. This dissertation presents a case study of Mandarin segmental morphology and phonology which covers the areas of (i) the analysis of derived mid vowels, (ii) distributional constraints on syllable structure, (iii) pre-specified reduplication patterns found in Mandarin-based language games, and (iv) phonological alternations found in the Beijing $\tau$-suffixation process, to argue that the syllable template of a language can be more than just a canonical form; it can be a fixed structure which must be fully instantiated in each surface syllable.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Linguistics

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Kuo, Feng-Lan

Contributors dc:contributor

• Cole, Jennifer S.

• Language, Linguistics

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 1994 Kuo, Feng-Lan

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

AAI9512440
(UMI)AAI9512440

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/20540