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

 619  The Structure of the Mandarin Syllable: why, when and how to teach it   The syllable structure in Mandarin As far as the Mandarin syllable is concerned, there are two major models, i. e. two major ways of looking at its structure [Li 1999: 75]: a) The Initial-Final model 声母—韵母样式 sh ngm — yùnm yàngshì b) The Onset-Rime model 节首—韵基样式 ji sh u — yùnjī yàngshì The Initial-Final model is a traditional one. The Chinese spelling system Pīnyīn is based on it. The model can be portrayed in the following way (ne- glecting the tone component) (fig. 2). The Initial-Final model can be alternatively represented in the form of a table (fig. 3). At the lowest level, that is at the level of segments, four components appear: C initial 声母 sh ngm (initial consonant) G medial 韵头 yùntóu , 介音 jièyīn (glide, prenuclear vowel) V main vowel 韵腹 yùnfù (nucleus, main vowel) X ending 韵尾 yùnw i (a vowel or a nasal consonant) The element called an ending seems to remind us of the coda element found in the model illustrated in Figure 1. However, there is an important difference: while a coda must be a consonant , the ending of a Chinese syl- lable ( yùnw i ) may be either a consonant , or a vowel . That means the ending element of a Chinese syllable cannot be simply identified with a coda ele- ment of a general syllable scheme. We shall touch upon this problem later. Furthermore, note that the component of a medial has no counterpart in the general model of a syllable (Figure 1). syllable ( σ )  dog rhyme g onset  nucleus coda d C    V  C C     V  C Figure 1. A general model of syllable structure, and an English example dog