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

 638  Hana Třísková   motivation, such as saving one letter, or enhancing visual clarity. Another rule established for the sake of the economy is omitting an umlaut on “ ” after the palatals / j, q, x / ( xu is phonologically / xü /, thus it is pronounced as [ɕyː] , not as * [ɕuː] ). This rule utilizes a complementary distribution: / u / is forbidden after / j, q, x /, thus a confusion of / u / and / / cannot happen. Some other tricky orthographic rules are also phonologically motivated. The “apical vowels” [ ɿ ] , [ ʅ ] may occur only after the apical sibilants / z, c, s, zh, ch, sh, r /, while a high front vowel [i] and an approximant [j] are allowed only after / b, p, m, d, t, n, l, j, q, x / . The sound of the “apical vowels” is rather different from [i] . Nevertheless, the authors of Pīnyīn , taking into account the com- mon historical origin and the fact of complementary distribution, eventually decided to interpret the “apical vowels” as positional variants of / i / (not as a separate phoneme). Both the “apical vowels” and [i] / [j] are thus written with a letter “ i ” . For instance, mi is pronounced as [miː] , while si is unex- pectedly pronounced not as * [siː] , but as [sɿː] , etc. This rule has to be learned mechanically, too, although explaining its underlying logic to a student is undoubtedly advantageous (the mispronunciation of the syllables zi, ci, si, zhi, chi, shi, ri is a very common mistake in beginners). Another pitfall is the graphical solution of three phonological pairs of unvoiced stops that contrast in aspiration (/ p-b /, / t-d / , / k-g /). To avoid a diacritical mark, Pīnyīn writes the aspirated stops without indicating aspiration: / p, t, k /, while the unaspirated stops are written with the symbols commonly used for the voiced stops: / b, d, g /. Beginners frequently misread / p, t, k / as the unaspirated [p], [t], [k] (this mistake is rather serious, as aspiration is a distinctive feature in Mandarin: dùzi 肚子 “belly” vs. tùzi 兔子 “rabbit”). A student should undoubtedly know the underlying phonology of the consonant system, yet in order to eradicate the described mistakes, mechanical drills are the only effective remedy. What Pīnyīn does not tell us An inherent property of an alphabetic script such as the Latin script is that it presents the words of a language as “beads on a string”. Particular “beads” are represented either by consonant letters (let us mark them by a circle ○ ), or by vowel letters (let us mark them by a black dot ●). For instance: /dɒɡ/ = ○ – ●–○, / frɒɡ / = ○–○–●–○ As far as Mandarin word, or rather the Mandarin syllable is concerned, the situation is analogous: in standard Pīnyīn notation, a syllable looks like