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On the types of multi-sound characters in Old Chinese: Focusing on initials

  • The Japanese Language Association of Korea
  • Abbr : JLAK
  • 2017, (54), pp.169-188
  • Publisher : The Japanese Language Association Of Korea
  • Research Area : Humanities > Japanese Language and Literature

Lee, Kyong Chul 1 oh chaehyun 1

1동국대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

I classified the types of multi-sound characters in old Chinese mainly focusing on Initials, and investigated the phonology system of ancient Chinese and showed how ancient Chinese changed to old Chinese. The following conclusions were drawn. (1) It seems that natural phonological changes in one language system include exchange between velars-laryngeals and dentals, exchange between linguals and affricate dentals and exchange between n and ɳ. (2) It cannot be seen as natural phonological changes in one language system that exchange between voiced sounds and voiceless sounds, exchange between aspirated sounds and unaspirated sounds, exchange between voiced sounds and aspirated sounds, exchange between velars and laryngeals, exchange between affricate dentals and fricative dentals, exchange between fricative dentals and vowels, exchange between consonants, exchange between palatal dentals and non-palatal dentals, exchange between ɳ and vowels, and exchange between l and vowel j. In my view, these phenomena occurred through contacts with various phonological systems in many different language groups. (3) It is deemed that there were two different main language groups in ancient Chinese: One group distinguished between voiced sounds and voiceless sounds and the other distinguished between aspirated sounds and unaspirated sounds. Further, I presume that voiced sounds in the language group that had the voiced-voiceless distinction changed to aspirated sounds in the language group that had the aspirated-unaspirated distinction. (4) It is thought that the changing process of linguals was linguals > affricate dentals > fricative dentals > vowel j. However, exchange between fricative dentals and vowels occurred in the language group that distinguished between voiced sounds and voiceless sounds because only voiced fricative dental sounds changed to vowel j. (5) I view that Ancient Chinese was affected by Altaic languages or Proto-Korean because there were double consonants and the consonants ɳ・l exchanged with vowels in ancient Chinese.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.