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

 618  Hana Třísková   The syllable as a linear configuration of vowels and consonants A syllable of any language can be viewed as a certain configuration of vowels, V , and consonants; C (we shall return to the notions of vowels and consonant later). For example, dog is CVC, frog is CCVC etc. The particu- lar configurations are called syllable types (sometimes alternative terms are used, e. g. syllable patterns, syllable structures, syllable templates etc.; we prefer the term “syllable types”). Every language has its own set of permis- sible syllable types. For Mandarin, twelve syllable types can be established: V ( a ), CV ( ma ), VV ( ai ), VC ( an ), GV ( ya ), GVV ( wai ), GVC ( yan ), CVV ( mai ), CVC ( man ), CGV ( mie ), CGVV ( kuai ), CGVC ( mian ). The symbol G stands for “a glide”, which is a prenuclear vowel. Accepting this symbol makes it possible to distinguish between two kinds of VV sequence: GV as a rising diphthong, and VV as a falling diphthong. Note that V (a nuclear vowel) is present in all syllable types — it is an obligatory item, at least in the view of Pīnyīn (some authors, on the other hand, work with the concept of syllabic consonants [ Duanmu 2002; Dragunov and Dragunova 1955] ). The vowelless syllables such as hng , hm , ng do not need to be considered — they are used only as interjections and remain outside the system of Mandarin syllables. The syllable as a hierarchical structure In the previous paragraph a syllable was presented as a linear sequence of vowel and consonant segments, chained together like beads on a string. Ho- wever, nowadays, linguists accept the view that a syllable (of any language) is a hierarchically organized structure , with subsyllabic components of more than one level. The commonly accepted general model of a syllable is presented in Figure 1. It reminds us of an upside down tree. In this model a syllable consists of a consonantal onset (one or more consonants), followed by a rhyme (sometimes written as rime ). A rhyme consists of a nucleus (typically a simple vowel, sometimes a diphthong, less frequently a syllabic consonant), which may be followed by a consonantal coda (one or more consonants). The concrete options for fillinɡ in this ab- stract model differ in various languages. For example, some languages pro- hibit the presence of more than one consonant in an onset (Mandarin), some languages prohibit empty onsets (Hebrew), some languages prohibit the use of a coda (Hawaiian), etc. Generally, every syllable of every language must have a nucleus.