拉祜语紧元音：从嘎裂声到喉塞尾

The Tense Vowels in Lahu:from Creaky Voice to Final Glottal Stop

拉祜语是否存在元音的松紧对立学术界尚有争议。本文通过实验语音学的方法考察表明:"松紧"元音实质上是发声态的区别。松元音是普通元音。紧元音则有两类四种不同的表现形式:(1)僵声类,包括嘎裂声和喉堵态;(2)张声类,包括喉塞尾,以及复合的张声嘎裂。嘎裂声是比较保守的发音,喉塞尾则是最新派的发音。大部分发音人处于两者之间,有喉堵、嘎裂、喉塞等多种变体。

It has been a longstanding controversy in Sino-Tibetan linguistics as to whether there is a ＂tense/lax＂ contrast in the Lahu language. This project examines six Lahu speakers in the perspective of experimental phonetics. The results of the survey show that the alleged ＂tense/lax＂ in Lahu is in fact a distinction of phonation types, which is different from that in English and Cantonese. The ＂lax＂ vowels are normal ones, while the ＂tense＂ vowels fall in four sub-types of two major phonation types： creaky voice and glottal muffle in the STIFF type, and final glottal stop and pre-glottal stop in the FORTIS type. The creaky variants of the ＂tense＂ vowels are older and more conservative while the glottal stop ending is newer and more innovative. Most of the Lahu speakers examined, four out of six, are in a transitional phase between pure creaky voice and pure glottal ending, with multiple variants in between.