THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF RETROFLEX FINALS IN NAISH LANGUAGES

In each known Naish language, there is at least one retroflex final; this paper describes the distributions of retroflex finals in five Naish languages spoken in Yunnan. Through sound correspondence analysis, this paper traces the origin of retroflex finals in Naish languages and explains related so...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Chinese Linguistics 2014-06, Vol.42 (2), p.309-329
Main Author: 李子鹤(Zihe Li)
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:In each known Naish language, there is at least one retroflex final; this paper describes the distributions of retroflex finals in five Naish languages spoken in Yunnan. Through sound correspondence analysis, this paper traces the origin of retroflex finals in Naish languages and explains related sound changes from Proto-Naish to modern dialects. The law of retroflex final evolution recognizes that the historical development of these finals had spread from west to east-the further east, the more finals have emerged from splitting, and the less the words have retroflex elements, while a new round of retroflexion is on the rise in eastern most languages.
ISSN:0091-3723