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

 623  The Structure of the Mandarin Syllable: why, when and how to teach it   Let us compare the models in Figures 2 and 4. A unit called rime is present in both of them. The view that a connection between a syllable nucleus and a syllable coda is generally more tight in languages than that between an onset and a nucleus is broadly accepted among phonologists (cf. Figure 1). Mandarin is no exception: the component of rime is re- gularly present within basically all models of the Mandarin syllable. We have established a term subfinal for it, marking it as VX. An utmostly tight connection between the segments constituting a subfinal, i. e. be- tween a main vowel and a terminal, results in the assimilations between both segments. The phoneticians agree on the observation that a non-high main vowel tends to assimilate in backness to a terminal element: if a terminal is front, i. e. / i / or / n / (as in bai, mei, ban, ben ), a main vowel is pronounced as front, or at least as non-back, e. g. ban  [pan] , ben  [pən] ; if a terminal is back, i. e. / u / or / ng / (as in bao = /bau/, bang, beng ), the main vowel is pronounced as back, e. g. bang  [pɑŋ] , beng  [pʌŋ] (note that assimilations of a mid vowel /ə/ are accepted less unani- mously in phonological literature than those of a low vowel /a/ ; some authors write [əŋ] , not [ʌŋ] ). The described assimilations run through a large part of Mandarin syllabary: they concern all syllables containing VX, namely the syllables with the finals of the VV, VC, GVV and GVC type (only types V and GV are excluded). These assimilations should be given due attention, in particular those of a low vowel /a/ : note that the difference between a front [a] and a back [ɑ] may serve as the only percep- tional cue for distinguishing between ban and bang , zhan and zhang etc. in casual speech, if a terminal nasal consonant is missing in pronunciation: ban  [pã] , bang  [pɑ̃] . Another point shared by both models is the notion of X (an ending ele- ment), which may be either a nasal consonant, or a vowel (let us point out again that there is a difference between the notion of X and the notion of a coda). On the other hand, there is a major difference between both models : in Figure 2 (the Initial-Final model ) a glide is a part of a final. In Figure 4 (the Onset-Rime model ) a glide belongs to an onset of a syllable; conse- quently, there is no final. There are two variants of the Onset-Rime model . The first one is illustrated in Figure 4: a glide has its own slot within an on- set. Some authors are more radical, though — they hold that a glide should not have a separate slot within an onset [Duanmu 1990, 2002, 2009]. In their view, although a glide still does have the status of a phoneme at the underlying level, at the phonetic level it is realized only as a secondary articulation to an initial consonant, e. g. /sw/ → [s w ] . Thus, the underly- ing combination CG surfaces as a single sound, e. g. su n 蒜 “garlic” is