Non-contrastive Features or Enhancement by Redundant Features

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1、LANGUAGEANDLINGUISTICS4.4:713-755,20032003-0-004-004-000067-1Non-contrastiveFeaturesorEnhancementbyRedundantFeatures?E.G.PulleyblankUniversityofBritishColumbiaInMandarinChinese,whenthesuffix-risaddedtosyllablesendingin-nand-N,bothconsonantsaredroppedbu

2、tthevowelisnasalizedinthecaseofN.Ithasrecentlybeenargued(Zhang2000)thatthisisbecauseintheunsuffixedformsthereisalreadyagreaterdegreeofnasalizationinthecaseof-Nthaninthecaseof-nandthatthismerelyallophoniccontrastbecomesdistinctivewhenthesuffixisadded.It

3、ishereclaimedthatthereisalreadyaphonemicdistinctionpresentintheunsuffixedforms,namelypharyngealizationofthevelarnasal,andthatfurthermorethereisapharyngealglide/A9/codainthecaseofso-called‘open’syllablesendingmidandlowvowels.Thisissupportedbycomparisonw

4、iththeChanglidialectinwhichbothnasalfinalsaredeletedbefore-rbutthedistinctionsareuniformlypreserved.Furtherevidencefortheneedtorecognizethepharyngealglide/A9/asapossiblephonemeandforreplacingthedorsalfeature[±low]withthetongue-rootfeature[±RTR]indistin

5、ctivefeaturetheoryisadducedfromthehistoryofChineseaswellasfromotherlanguages,includingEnglish,whereittakestheplaceofthetraditionaltense/laxcontrastinshortandlongvowels.Thissupportstheconceptoffeaturalcontraststhatarestrictlyspeakingredundantaccordingto

6、thestandardtestofminimalpairsbutthatservetoenhancedistinctionsthatwouldotherwisebeeasytoconfuse.Keywords:non-contrastivefeatures,redundantfeatures,pharyngealglide,r-suffixation1.IntroductionInarecentpaper,JieZhang(2000)arguesthatinMandarinChinesethenas

7、alityinducedontheprecedingvowelbythe/N/codaisperceptuallymoresalientthanthenasalizationinducedbytheothernasalcoda/n/andthatthisistheexplanationforthefactthatwhentheretroflexdiminutivesuffixisadded,resultinginlossofbothprecedingnasalconsonants,thedistin

8、ctionbetween-Vnand-VNispreservedbynasalizationofthevowelinthecaseofthelatterbutnottheformer.Sincedegreeofnasalizationisnotnormallyrecognizedasapossibledistinctivefeature,thisrequirestheassumptionthatasurfacephoneticcontrastcanemergeasdi