Проблемы китайского и общего языкознания. К 90-летию С. Е. Яхонтова

 617  The Structure of the Mandarin Syllable: why, when and how to teach it   (such as in the syllables b i , m a , d e etc.), of two segments (such as in the syllables b in , m ai , d ie etc.), or of three segments (such as in the sylla- bles b ian , m iao , sh uang etc.). First, let us find out how difficult the par- ticular segments which may occur within a final actually are. The range of options is / i /, / u /, / /, / a /, / e /, / o /, / n /, / ng / 1 . Most of them are com- mon vowels. Two segments are nasal consonants, the former one being extremely common across the languages. The only two segments which could potentially be viewed as difficult are / / and / ng / . Furthermore, if we are to do full justice to the situation, we need to acknowledge that the simple sounds traditionally called “apical vowels” can also cause certain difficulties to the student ( Pīnyīn interprets them as allophones of / i / oc- curring after the apical sibilants, namely in the syllables zi, ci, si, zhi, chi, shi, ri ; however, the pronunciation of “apical vowels” is rather different from [i] ). The pronunciation of a simple vowel / e / (as in the syllables she, ze etc.) is also somewhat tricky: it is [ ɤ ʌ ː ] . Yet — taking everything into consideration — most of the problems with pronouncing the finals do not arise from the fact that this or that particular segment is difficult as such (as is the case with certain initials). The major cause of mispronuncia- tions of the finals lies somewhere else. But where exactly? This article attempts to find both an answer to this question, as well as the solution. The stimulus for writing the present text came from some ponderings related to my Ph. D. dissertation, Segment lní struktura čínsk slabiky [segmental structure of the Mandarin syllable], defended in September 2010 at Charles University, Prague 2 . In the previous paragraph, an initial and a final were established as the two major subsyllabic components of the Mandarin syllable. In order to en- gage fully in the following discussion, we need first to introduce the syllable structure in more detail. 1 Note that some underlyingly present elements may be missing in standard P īnyīn orthography of particular finals: e. g. gui is phonologically / guei /, xiu is / xiou /. In other cases, the underlying Pīnyīn phoneme may be written as a different letter in standard pīnyīn orthography: xu is / xü /, miao is / miau /, dong is / dung /, etc. 2 A preliminary outline of this topic was introduced in my lecture titled “How to teach the segmental structure of the Mandarin syllable” presented in October 2010 at the Pho- netic Laboratory of the Institute of Linguistics, CASS, Beijing, and at the Center for Studies of Chinese as a Second Language, Beijing Language and Culture University. These two presentations were followed by inspiring discussions with attending Chinese linguists, phoneticians, language teachers and students. They helped me to get closer to the core of the problem.