潮汕方言古浊声母去声字今读考察及分析

An Analysis of Middle Chinese qusheng with Voiced Initials in Chaoshan Dialects

早期潮汕方言古全浊上字读阳上调,古浊去字读阳去调。潮汕各地方言阳上、阳去的前变调大面积混同,导致非常用全浊上字和非常用浊去字窜调。由于浊去字远多于全浊上字,非常用浊去字理应远多于非常用全浊上字,不考虑其他因素,二者窜调概率相同,所以前者窜调的字数远多于后者,使得阳上调中非常用字的比例逐渐提高,而阳去调反之,形成浊去字读阳上和阳去两种声调文白对立的趋势,在强大的文读系统压力之下,未窜调的非常用浊去字也逐渐被折合到阳上调,形成了潮汕方言“浊去文读归上”的独特现象。这个音变的前提是阳上、阳去前变调的大面积混同,关键因素是浊去字明显比全浊上字多。这个结论得到语言事实的佐证。

In early Chaoshan dialects,the Middle Chinese(MC) shangsheng (上声)with voiced initials used to be pronounced as yangshang (阳上),while the MC qusheng (去声)with voiced initials used to be pronounced as yangqu (阳去).The front sandhi of yangshang has been merged with that of yangqu across the Chaoshan dialects,which has led to the tonal mergence of low-occurrence characters of full voiced MC shangsheng and voiced MC qusheng .Since the characters of voiced qusheng outnumber those of full voiced shangsheng ,the low-occurrence characters of voiced qusheng should also outnumber those of full voiced shangsheng .Disregarding other factors,the probability of the tone-shift characters of the former is much higher than that of the latter.Therefore,low-occurrence characters in yangshang have experienced a gradual increase in number,while those in yangqu have experienced a gradual reduction.The tonal changes of the voiced MC qusheng have resulted in the tonal contrast of yangshang as literary reading and yangqu as colloquial reading.Under strong pressure of the literary reading system,low-occurrence characters of voiced qusheng without tonal shifting are also converted to yangshang .Finally,the extraordinary phenomenon of“the voiced qusheng pronounced as yangshang in the literary reading system”takes shape in Chaoshan dialects,which is preconditioned by the large-scale of mergence of front sandhi of yangshang and yangqu .The key factor affecting this is that the number of the voiced qusheng is obviously larger than that of the full voiced shangsheng .This conclusion is supported by the linguistic facts illustrated in this paper.