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

 635  The Structure of the Mandarin Syllable: why, when and how to teach it   are transcribed as approximants (e. g. mie [mje] , duo [twɔ] , xue [çɥe]) which belong to the phonetic consonants, phonologically we view them as vowels. That means we accept rising diphthongs / ie /, / uo /, / e / etc., and view them as consisting of two vocalic phonemes. The analogous situation exists with triphthongs. • The main vowels / a /, / o /, / e /, / i /, / u /, / / are usually pronounced as full vowels, reaching a pertinent articulatory target. If not followed by a terminal, they may be lengthened in the stressed syllables, e. g. ma  [maː] . (We are leaving aside the influences of a loss of stress and tone. Both of them may suppress the main vowel in some situations — the main vowel may be reduced or even fully omitted: e. g. xiū / xiou / 1 can be realized as [ɕju] 1 ). • The terminals / i /, / u / (X = V) , / n /, / ng / (X = C) have a lax, rather unsta- ble and variable articulation, often not reaching the articulatory target; they may disappear in pronunciation completely. The vocalic terminals / i / , / u / are mostly realized as centralized [ɪ] , [ʊ], or even as more open [e] , [o] ( mai  [maɪ] , [mae] , mao  [maʊ] , [mao] ). They may even disap- pear in fast casual speech, a falling diphthong being monophthongized. A nasal terminal / n / [n] often has an incomplete closure. If the closure happens to be complete, it is not followed by an explosion (this can be expressed by a small diacritic: [n ̚ ] ). A nasal terminal / ng / [ŋ] must not be followed by an explosion or by a [k] sound (e. g. pronouncing bang as * [paŋk] is wrong). Both nasal terminals / n / , / ng / may disappear in ca- sual speech, being realized only as the nasalization of a preceding vowel, e. g. ban  [pã] , bang  [pɑ̃] . All four terminal segments share certain features, although two of them are vowels ( / i /, / u / ) and two of them are consonants ( / n / , / ng / ): the consonantal character of / n / , / ng / is weak. The systematic linkage between the function of a segment within a syl- lable structure and some of its articulatory properties is not specific solely to Mandarin — it can be found across other languages. For instance, a conso- nant in a syllable coda is generally more sensitive to articulatory weakening than a consonant in a syllable onset. Another example: vowel-like (vocoid) segments occurring before a syllable nucleus (i. e. as the first component of a rising diphthong) often tend to have the character of an approximant, e. g. Spanish puerta “door”  [pweɾta] . On the other hand, vowel-like (vocoid) segments occurring after a syllable nucleus (i. e. as the second component of a falling diphthong) tend to keep their vocoid character, that is to keep the properties of a vowel, e. g. Spanish auto “car”  [au̯to] [Duběda 2005: 52]. Thus, we cannot claim that we are dealing with a Mandarin specialty here. Yet, in Mandarin this phenomenon is rather striking, transparent and well