ON THE DEPARTING TONE

論去聲

沙加尔(Laurent Sagart)

《Journal of Chinese Linguistics》 14卷1期 (1986/01) Pp. 90-113

摘要

Haudricourt's theory of the origin of Chinese tones states that Rising tone originated in a final glottal stop, and Departing tone in a final -h. itself derived from an earlier -s. While abundant evidence has accumulated in support of Haudricourt's -? and -s (in particular the existence of a series of conservative dialects at the perpheries of Chinese, preserving final -? in Rising-tone words), no evidence at all has been adduced in support of an -h stage in the development of the Departing tone. Middle Chinese appears furthermore to have had no final -h, as the Sanskrit visarga was transliterated by means of Middle Chinese -k. It is suggested that Departing tone arose not through the loss of final -h, but through a glottalized phonation stage, still observable in a series of dialects of the periphery. The reconstruction of a glottalized phonation stage agrees well with the historical sources, and provides a solution to the long-standing problem of Chinese-Vietnamese tonal correspondences. Based on that reconstruction, an account of the development of Middle Chinese tones into Mandarin is proposed, which explains the shift of quan zhuo shang words into yang qu, and the aspiration pattern of the quan zhuo initials in a simple way. Parallel developments from -s to glottalized phonation in Vietnamese and Tibetan open inquiry into the tonogenetics of these languages.

並列摘要

據法國學者歐德里古爾（A. -G. Haudricourt），上古漢語是一種沒有聲調的語言。中古的上聲是由上古的□韻尾發展出來的，而中古的去聲是由上古的-s韻尾，經過一個-h韻尾的過渡階段而發展出來的。近幾年來，證明上古音存在着-s和□兩個韻尾的證據越來越多，比如說有不少的沿海方言上聲保存着上古音的□韻尾。然而，-h韻尾存在在中古音的證據很難找到。相反，中古沒有-h韻尾是可以肯定的，因為梵語的-h詞尾（所謂visarga）是用中古入聲字的-k韻尾來標示，而不是用去聲字。去聲在中古音的音值可以用現代方言來構拟。有幾個閩、吳、贛方言的去聲字發生緊喉作用。因為這些方言在地理上都屬於邊緣分佈，緊喉作用這個特徵很可能是原有的，所以構拟中古去聲為有緊喉作用的聲調是有根據的。這種構拟符合歷史記載，同時也解決了漢語和越南語之間聲調上對音的問題，中古全濁上變陽去和全濁平送氣，全濁仄不送氣的現象也容易解釋了。此外，-s韻尾變成緊喉作用還有拉薩語和越南語的例子。