On Phonation Types of Initial Nasals and Some Related Considerations in Chinese Wu Dialects
（论吴语鼻音的发声型对立及其它）
摘要：吴语里的鼻音声母在听感上包含清浊两类。可是，通过相关的发声型考察，我们发现，跟这种清浊对立
相关的语音效应并不表现在鼻音本身，而是表现在它的后接元音的起始阶段，这跟吴语里不送气塞音清浊对立
的语音特性大致相当。因此，我们有理由认为，现代吴语声母在听感上的清浊对立，很可能是以其后接元音起
始阶段的发声型区别为基础、而不是以鼻音本身的区别为基础的。而且，早在中古汉语时期情况可能就是如此
了。
ABSTRACT
The initial nasals in Chinese Wu Dialects auditorily contain two groups of variations, namely, plain
voice and breathy voice. However, the results of phonation type test taken in this study show that the
relevant phonetic effect for the contrast between this pair of variations is lied outside, instead upon, of
these nasals, that is, lied on the earlier part of the following vowels as it does in the case of initial stops
in the same dialects. Therefore, the related consideration is that, the auditorily perceived contrast of
voiceless vs. voiced consonant in Wu Dialects is likely to be based on the phonation difference of the
following vowel, rather than on the consonant itself, and it may be true even in Middle Chinese.
1. INTRODUCTION
Linguistically use of phonation type difference for some phonological contrasts has been observed
from many languages in the world (Ladefoged, 1983; Kirk, etc., 1984; Maddieson and Ladefoged, 1985;
Thongkum, 1987). The phonological contrast between voiced (Vd) and voiceless (Vl) initial consonants
in Wu Dialects of Chinese seems also to be related somehow to the difference of laryngeal adjustment.
Some previous approaches (Cao, 1987; Ren, 1987; Ren, 1988, 1989) respected to stop initials in WD
have revealed that such a contrast does refer to phonation difference and corresponding tonal distinction,
but its phonetic effect is obviously lied upon the former part of following vowel, rather than the
consonants themselves.
Similarly, as syllable initial, nasal consonants in Wu Dialects, including [m, n] and [Ð] are
commonly perceived that there are two group of variations based on corresponding tonal contrast of the
syllables. It is usually referred to the auditory distinction of plain voice vs. breathy voice, and
phonologically classified into Vd and Vl categories. Specifically, variation 1, namely the Vl one, is a
plain voice, but with a laryngeal stop-like onset sometimes, and always occur in syllables with so-called
"Yin" tones, a category of high tones or tones with higher pitch onset; while the variation 2, namely the
Vd one, sounds with some breathy color and always occur in the syllables with so-called "Yang" tones, a
category of low tones or tones with lower pitch onset. This auditory distinction and phonotactic
relationship seems to be the same as that of stop initials in Wu Dialects, though this two classes of
initials are different both in diachronic source and their phonetic nature.
A brief observation to nasal's waveforms found that, the tokens in "Yang" tone contexts always have
lower fundamental frequency and lower amplitude as the examples shown in Fig.1.
Fig. 1 Example of nasal waveforms (see the last page)
Based on the auditory distinction and the difference observed from the waveforms, two questions to
be examined in this study are firstly, whether the contrast between auditory based variations of nasals is
also discriminated by phonation difference of breathy voice vs. non-breathy voice? If any, then the
correlate phonetic effect is lied upon the nasals themselves or lied outside of the consonants as it does in
the case of initial stops? Secondly, how to view and explain the similarity appeared between the nasal
and stop initials mentioned above?
A tentative hypothesis made here is that the auditorily based divisions of nasals likely involve in
phonatory distinction, and the main phonetic effect should be lied upon the nasals themselves, and the
similarity occurred in the two different classes of initial consonants may be mainly based on the tonal
contrast.
2. EXPERIMENT & RESULT
The method applied here is to examine energy distribution by measuring spectral energy and
calculating the difference between first and second harmonics (H2) of the test pairs. Generally, the first
harmonic (H1)of breathy voice should have relatively higher energy in compare with the non-breathy
one, therefore, if a significant difference is observed here, then we should consider that the voice
distinction of breathy vs. non-breathy does exist between this pair of initial nasals.
The languages involved in this investigation include Wenzhou and Changyinsha dialects as the
southern and northern examples of Wu Dialects respectively. For the phonotactic reason, it is hard to
make enough number of test pairs that can meet minimal contrast both in Wenzhou and Changyinsha.
Therefore, the nasals in test included here are only /m/ and /n/, which are put in 4 pairs of words for each
dialect in question. The test words were first read in isolation and then in connected speech by three
male and one female native speakers. The spectral analysis and energy measurements were conducted by
using the Cspeech computer program in the Phonetics Lab at UCLA. To examine the significance of
phonetic effect on the phonation difference, an analysis of variance were also applied to the measured
data as well. The results are summarized in Table 1.
Table 1. Comparison on energy distribution between variation1 and 2 of the initial nasals in WD
3. ANALYSIS & DISCUSSION
The results summarized above seems do not completely support our hypothesized proposal, since in
both dialects, almost all of the mean difference of H1-H2 at the beginning and the middle of nasals
appeared in minus value. It means that the first harmonic of the variation 2 does not have relatively
higher energy as it should do. Thus, it provides no evidence that correlates to the contrast of breathy vs.
non-breathy voices during these nasals. On the other hand, however, at the onset of the following vowels,
the results (as shown in the third lines in Table 1) do show highly significant difference in energy
distribution between the pair of variations, and such difference also can be seen from the examples of
their power spectra given in Fig.2, in which the [m] in syllable /ma/ (妈 mother) and the [m] in syllable
/ma/ （埋 to bury）represent the plain nasal and breathy nasal respectively. From this point of view, we
can say only that there does exist some phonation difference related to the auditory contrast between
variation 1 and 2, but the relevant phonetic effect is stamped on their following vowels, rather than lied
on the nasals themselves as it was assumed at the beginning of this study.
Fig. 2 Example of nasal power spectra (see the last page)
So far, it may enable us to make some further considerations on the well-known contrast of voiceless
vs. voiced consonants in Wu Dialects.
Firstly, after the findings on initial stops in Wu Dialects, the experimental data obtained here
illustrated again that the perceptually breathy sense of so-called voiced consonants is actually caused by
the breathiness existed in the following vowel and the corresponding pitch (tone) lowering, it is a feature
shared by the stops and nasals. I think this kind of similar relationship occurred between initial nasal s
and stops must not be an accident phenomenon, but rather a regular rule. Consequently, the findings on
nasals in this study exactly provides a nice collateral evidence for our previous suggestion (Cao, 1987),
that the well-known consonantal contrast of voiceless vs. voiced is actually based on the absence vs.
presence of the breathiness lied on the post-consonantal vowel, as we as the corresponding tonal contrast
of "Yin" vs "Yang".
However, according to the data observed so far, the phonetic effect on the phonation type contrast,
namely the difference in energy distribution of this pairs, is significant only at the onset of the vowel,
instead of the whole vowel (because in vowel middle, p=0.0763, and in vowel offset, p=0.0326).
Therefore, yet it is hard to determine whether this phonation type difference is an inherent characteristics
belonging to the vowel or not. Consequently, a reasonable question may be re-raised is that which is the
main (or dominant) body of the phonation difference related to. To search the answer, there are at least
two ways could be taken, i.e., diachronic way or synchronic one.
It might be useful to have a glance at a brief comparison between the initial nasals and unaspirated
stops before further discussion. It can be summarized in Table 2.
Table 2. Comparison between nasals and stops in Middle Chinese and Modern Wu Dialects
From the comparison made above, some points could be seen that, (a) phonologically, the
classification of initial nasals and stops in Modern Wu (WD) dialects are developed from different
diachronic sources: for stops, it is just retained the classification of the Middle Chinese (MC), this
historical relationship between WD and MC is obviously clear; while the case is different for nasals, in
which the variations were belonging to the same category in MC, i.e., so-called "Ci Zhuo" (i.e.,
secondary voiced). Therefore, if we can say that the contrast of breathy vs. non-breathy is closely related
to the consonantal contrast of voiceless (Vl) vs. voiced (Vd), hence the breathiness is inherently
belonging to the Vd consonant in the case of the stops, as it can be regarded as a reasonable result
developed from its historical source; then we hardly to explain why the nasal's behavior is so similar to
that of stops, because there is no such a historical source for the nasals to be developed from or
influenced by. (b) Phonetically, nasals and stops are different in their phonetic nature. For stops in MC, it
was supposed that there were two sets of sound different in voicing, namely voicelessness for the Vl
category and full voicing for the Vd ones, but the latter category has lost its voicing in WD and become
a kind of sounds well-known as "Qingyin Zhuoliu", i.e., a voiceless onset followed by some breathiness;
but the nasals, however, were full voicing assumed in MC and being remained in WD no matter it is in
variation 1 or 2. In view of this fact, we would think that the existence of breathiness seems does not
depend on the presence of consonant voicing. (c) Phonotactically, the historical Vl initial stops always
match with "Yin" tones and the Vd ones always match with "Yang" tones without almost any exception;
while in the case of initial nasals, there seems no any constraint in matching with tonal category. In the
other words, they can co-occur with either "Yin" or "Yang" tones although all of them are phonetically
full voiced. Generally, most of them occur in "Yang" tone syllables and some of them in "Yin" tone
syllables. So it means that the particular feature of "Yang" tones, i.e., the pitch lowering must be caused
by something else other than consonant distinction or its phonetic nature.
Against the background given above, consequently, an alternate assumption is that the breathiness is
a kind of inherent feature belonging to the vowel, and it may be true even in MC. Since what as we have
seen that, the real relationship hidden behind the similarity appeared between the cases of nasals and
stops is the co-occurrence of breathy voice with the "Yang" tones. Specifically, the perceived breathy
sense of "voiced" consonants is always appeared when the phonation difference and the corresponding
tonal contrast is present, and it is always disappeared when the phonation difference is absent and tonal
contrast to be neutralized due to tone sandhi, hence the phonation type distinction and tonal difference
must be co-produced, while both of them is related to the vowels, instead of the consonants themselves.
In addition to this, some diachronic evidences are also found from historical literatures (Liaozun,
1345; Anran, 880), in which the contrasted terms of voiceless and voiced is usually accompanied with
the difference of so-called "Qing" (light) and "Zhong" (heavy), which is usually referred to the tonal
distinction and to be described as the register difference and contour difference, such as "Di"(low),
"Ang" ( high or rising) and "Yan" (falling) etc. Moreover, as early as the time of Ming dynasty, it had
been clearly pointed (Fang, Y.) that, the contrasted terms of so-called "Yin" vs."Yang", "Qing"
vs."Zhuo"(voiceless/voiced) and "Qing" vs. "Zhong" were substitutional terms in the past. Therefore, it
is reasonable to suppose that: the contrast of voiceless vs. voiced consonants in Middle Chinese may be
actually also referred to the difference of the relevant vowels, too.
Besides, we may have a synchronic analysis as well.
Generally, the adjacent segments are always affected to or influenced by each other due to coarticulation,
so the phenomenon of overlapping between adjacent segments is often taken place (Fowler, 1980;
Keating, 1988) in real speech. Therefore, their features are blended into each other during the production
of the latter part of the first segment and the former part of the next segment. In other words, there must
exist transitional sound quality for the overlapped period. Specifically, in a CV structure, for example,
the feature appeared in the earlier part of vowel must be influenced by the previous consonant and
reflects the feature of the consonant, and vice versa. It is a universal rule, which has been well revealed
and must be also true for the case of CV syllables in Wu Dialects. Thus, the crucial question here is that
which is the dominant factor that responsible for the breathy color? Consonant or vowel? If this color is
carried over from the consonant, then we have to assume that there must exist breathy color on the
consonant itself, but it is not true according to the experimental results obtained so far, though a more
wide opening of the glottis about release of voiced stops in Shanghai dialect was observed (Ren, 1988).
On the contrary, however, it is more logical to assume that the more opening of glottis about the release
of the consonant is caused by the nature of following vowel due to anticipatory coarticulation, because
the results reported by different observators have already revealed the existence of breathiness on the
vowel, though the phonetic effect is not quite significant at the middle and offset of the vowel, but at
least it is still in expected direction.
Consequently, It may be more plausible to regard the breathiness as an inherent nature of the vowel
and to be spread to its previous consonants by coarticulatory overlapping. Actually, it is likely also true
for some other phonological distinction in other dialects or languages (Pulleblank, 1984; Maddieson,
1987). Unfortunately, however, it is often ignored or misled.
4. CONCLUSION
The result from phonation type test taken in this study come to the conclusion that, the perceptually
contrast of plain vs. breathy nasals in Wu Dialects is also mainly related to the difference on phonation
types of following vowel, rather than the nasals themselves. This situation is the same as that of initial
stops. Based on this similarity and some extended collateral evidences, we would argue that the
well-known phonological contrast of voiceless vs. voiced consonants either in modern Wu Dialects and
in the Middle Chinese may be originally based on the voice distinction of the vowel, instead of the
consonants themselves.
5. REFERENCES
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______, 1988. A fiberoptic and transllumination study of Shanghai stops, Paper presented in the
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(原载《第一届国际言语处理学术会议论文集》，日本，大阪，1990 年(Proc. Of ICSLP’90, Kobe,
Japan, 1990)。
Fig. 1 Example of nasal waveforms
Fig. 2 Example of nasal spectra