Korean is thought to be unique in having three kinds of voiceless stops: aspirated /p h t h k h /, tense /p* t* k*/, and lax /p t k/. The contrast between tense and lax stops raises two theoretical problems. First, to distinguish them either a new feature [tense] is needed, or the contrast in voicing (or aspiration) must be increased from two to three. Either way there is a large increase in the number of possible stops in the world's languages, but the expansion lacks support beyond Korean. Second, initial aspirated and tense consonants correlate with a high tone, and lax and voiced consonants correlate with a low tone. The correlation cannot be explained in the standard tonogenesis model (voiceless-high and voiced-low). We argue instead that (a) underlyingly "tense" stops are regular voiceless unaspirated stops, and "lax" stops are regular voiced stops, (b) there is no compelling evidence for a new distinctive feature, and (c) the consonant-tone correlation is another case of voiceless-high and voiced-low. We conclude that Korean does not have an unusual phonology, and there is no need to complicate feature theory.
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SUMMARYA common conception of Chinese is that most of its words are monosyllabic historically but disyllabic in modern times. Since Chinese lost over 50% of its syllables in the past 1000 years, a standard explanation for the increase of disyllabic words is that they are created to avoid homonyms. I argue instead that, although disyllabic words have increased recently, Chinese has always had many disyllabic words. In addition, the increase of disyllabic words is not primarily due to homonym avoidance, but due to an increase in new vocabulary, most of which consists of polysyllabic borrowings, polymorphemic translations, and polymorphemic creations, which cannot be represented by monosyllabic words. In support of the present analysis, I offer illustration that the use of disyllabic words is not dictated by homonym avoidance but by metrical structure. I also discuss a few other approaches to disyllabic words in Chinese.RÉSUMÉUne idee recue sur la langue chinoise est que presque tous les mots etaient primitivement monosyllabiques, mais depuis lors devenues dissyllabi-ques. Pendant le dernier millenaire ans, le chinois a perdu plus de 50% de ses syllabes, alors que le nombre des mots dissyllabiques a-t-il augmente pour eviter rhomonymie. C'est l'explication la plus courante. Cependant, nous constatons que malgre cette augmentation recente, le chinois possede depuis toujours beaucoup de mots dissyllabiques. Par ailleurs, le phenomene d'augmentation du nombre de syllabes ne s'est pas produit essentiellement afin d'eviter l'homonymie, mais est du a 1'apparition de nouveaux mots, dont la plupart sont des emprunts polysyllabiques, des caiques polymorphologi-ques et des neologismes polymorphemiques, que ne pouvaient representer des mots monosyllabiques. Cette analyse nous permet donc de constater que l'emploi de mots polysyllabiques ne pas produit pour eviter l'homonymie, mais est dû a la structure metrique. Nous parlerons egalement de quelques autres approches visant a analyser les mots dissyllabiques en chinois.ZUSAMMENFASSUNGEs wird oft behauptet, daß viele chinesische Worter historisch einsilbig, aber heutzutage zweisilbig seien. Weil das Chinesische mehr als 50% seiner Silben im letzten Jahrtausend verlor, wird die Zunahme an zweisilbigen Wortern oft als Versuch erklart, Homonyme zu vermeiden. In vorliegenden Beitrag wird dagegen argumentiert, daB obwohl die Zahl zweisilbiger Worter zugenommen hat, es stets viele zweisilbige Worter im Chinesischen gegeben hat. Auch hangt die Zunahme an zweisilbigen Worterm in erster Linie nicht mit der Vermeidung von Homonymen zusammen, sondern mit der Zunahme an neuen Wortern, da dieser neue Wortschatz hauptsachlich aus mehrsilbigen Lehnwortern, polymorphemischen Lehntibersetzungen und Neuschopfungen besteht, die nicht durch einsilbige Worter bezeichnet werden konnen. Als Unterstiitzung dieser Hypothese wird gezeigt, daB die Benutzung zweisilbiger Worter nicht der Homonymvermeidung gegolten hat, sondern von der metrischen Struktur vorgeschrieben wird. Anderwartige Analysen von mehrsilbigen Wortern im Chinesischen werden ebenfalls besprochen.
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