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

 643  The Structure of the Mandarin Syllable: why, when and how to teach it   Drawing both on the traditions of old Chinese phonology and on the Wes- tern approach, while taking inspiration from the “polysystemic” approach, we could possibly think of a new, combined analysis 1 . In the first step, the traditional elements sh ngm (an initial) , yùntóu (a medial) , yùnfù (a main vowel), and yùnwěi (a terminal) are accepted as the basis for establishing four independent systems of phonological components: “initialemes”, “me- dialemes”, “centralemes” and “terminalemes”. Each system has its own in- ventory of segments: 声母位 sh ngm wèi “the initialemes” / b /, / p /, / m /, / f /, / d /, / t /, / n I / , / l / ... etc. 韵头位 yùntóu wèi “the medialemes” / i M /, / u M /, / M / 韵腹位 yùnfù wèi “the centralemes” / a /, / o /, / e /, / i C /, / u C /, / C / 韵尾位 yùnw i wèi “the terminalemes” / i T /, / u T /, / n T /, / ng / We have to deal with several segments standardly viewed as one pho- neme occurring in several positions by Western phonologists, namely / i /, / u /, / /, / n / . The suggested solution is as follows: they are marked by the in- dex letters, indicating their function: M (indicating the function of a medial), C (indicating the function of a central, or a main vowel), and T , (indicating the function of a terminal). For example, / i M / , / i C / , / i T / ; they are viewed as three different phonological units, not as one phonological unit / i / with three al- lophones in complementary distribution. The following table compares a standard solution accepting a single pho- neme / i / , with our analysis, suggesting three phonological units: i as a medial i as a main vowel i as a terminal standard analysis phoneme / i / [ j ] phoneme / i / [ i ] phoneme / i / [ ɪ ] suggested analysis medialeme / iM / [ j ] centraleme / iC / [ i ] terminaleme / iT / [ ɪ ] Figure 7. Analysis of the phoneme /i/ A standard “Western” solution is phonologically economical, as it in- volves a single phoneme /i/ (with three allophones [j], [i], [ɪ] ). The sugges- ted analysis is less efficient: it accepts three phonological units, each with a single allophone: a medialeme ( yùntóu wèi ) / i M / with a single allophone [j] , 1 Such an analysis is outlined in [Triskova 2010: 51].