A Diachronic Phonological Study Of Zi Rime Change In Northern Henan Province

Zi rime change (zi Man yun) is a process in which the rime part of a Chinese syllable is altered under highly regular rules in order to express the same semantic function of the suffix zi ([t(?)],’子’). Examples of zi rime change are in such forms as [tchiau] (’eggplant+suffix’) and [xiau] (’child+suffix’) which are used in the dialects in question, instead of [tchi(?).ts(?)] (’eggplant+suffix’) and [xai.ts(?)] (’child+suffix’) which are used in mandarin. The phenomenon of zi rime change is less studied comparing to other morpho-phonological processes in Chinese dialects. Previously, the researches on zi rime change mainly focus on describing the phenomenon, instead of theorizing the pattern. In addition, the evolutionary process of this special phenomenon is far from conclusive.It is generally believed that zi rime change in Henan Province is an affixation process, in which the suffix is a full-segment affix [u]. However, there are two issues remaining unsettled, i.e.1) whether the origin of zi rime change is an affix zi or any other form; 2) what is the evolutionary process from an independent syllabic affix to a segmental affix ([u]) in northern Henan Province. This present thesis makes an attempt to explain the origin and evolutionary process of zi rime change in northern Henan Province.This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter One and Two present the background related to the research of zi rime change and relevant previous studies. In these two chapters, the Chinese affixal typology, syllable structure and definition of zi rime change are discussed and some inspiring assumptions and analyses made by previous scholars are also discussed.Chapter Three introduces the research approaches adopted by this thesis, including dialect geography, markedness theory, effort-based approach and feature geometry. These methods provide new perspectives of the interpretation of the evolutionary process of zi rime change.Chapter Four presents some new evidence for the origin and evolutionary process of zi rime change in northern Henan Province mainly from the geographical distribution of zi forms in Hebi area and nearby Shanxi Province. Based on the investigation into the relationship between the typological distribution and the geographical features, as well as the related historical events of immigrants in the Ming Dynasty, the author argues that the full segment affix of zi rime change in northern Henan Province is originated from suffix [ts(?)], and the idea of other origins is not that convincing.Apart from the establishment of evolutionary chain, Chapter Five makes efforts to interpret and formalize the evolutionary process from the perspectives of effort-based approach and in light of markedness theory and Optimality Theory. The syllabic affix is gradually degenerating. The onset of [ts(?)] gradually lenites to stop, lateral or nasal and is finally lost, while the nucleus reduces from a high front vowel to a schwa. Therefore, this syllabic affix finally declines to a schwa affix [(?)], and starts to merge into the stem rime. In addition, the motivation of the change from a schwa affix to a full-segment affix [u] is also hypothesized in this chapter. In the author’s point of view, this change is due to the tendency to preserve the semantic function of zi suffix, which forces the segmental affix to be more prominent when it merges into the stem rime in the later stages of the evolution.Chapter Six makes a conclusion that the connection between syllabic affix zi and rime-change form in northern Henan Province is possible; the consonant lenition and vowel reduction of zi affix are motivated by internal linguistic force, which can be formulized into such markedness constraints LAZY and *-ΔFt≥{i,(?), y, u}. These markedness constraints tend to promote markedness reduction, while the transition from a schwa to segmental affix [u] is to make the affix more prominent and preserve the semantic function of zi suffix.