Rime table

A rime table or rhyme table (zh-cpw|c=韻圖/韵图|p="yùntú"|w="yün-t'u") is a syllable chart of the Chinese language, a significant advance on the "fanqie" analysis used in earlier rime dictionaries. As China's native phonological model, it tabulates the syllables of Middle Chinese by their onsets, rimes, grades of rime, tones and other properties.

Tradition holds that rime tables were invented by Buddhist monks, who were inspired by the Sanskrit syllable charts in the Siddham script they used to study the language. The Song Dynasty "Yunjing" and "Qiyin lüe" are the oldest extant rime tables. Based on numerous internal similarities, linguists conclude they shared a common prototype of phonological tables with accompanying texts, a tradition that may date back to the late Tang Dynasty. (Baxter 1992: 41)

tructure

A rime table book consists of a number of tabular charts, each devoted to either the "inner" ("nèi" 內) or "outer" ("wài" 外) part of a particular rime group ("shè" 攝).The inner/outer subdivision is thought to be related to the vocalic heights contrasting close vowels and open vowels respectively.Each "shè" (攝) is characterized as either "open" ("kāi" 開) and "closed" ("hé" 合), which are interpreted to indicate the absence or presence of lip rounding (often transcribed as -w- or -u-).

Within a table, syllables are classified using other features:
* The initial consonant ("shēngmǔ" 聲母 lit. "sound mother"). A syllable beginning with a vowel is considered to have a "zero initial." Initials are classified according to
** place of articulation: labials ("chún" 脣 "lip"), alveolars ("shé" 舌 "tongue"), velars ("yá" 牙 "back tooth"), affricates and sibilants ("chǐ" 齒 "front tooth"), and gutturals ("hóu" 喉 "throat"). The values of the last category remain controversial.
** phonation: voiceless ("qīng" 清 "clear"), voiceless aspirated ("cìqīng" 次清 "secondary clear"), voiced ("zhuó" 濁 "muddy") or nasal or liquid ("qīngzhuó" 清濁 "clear muddy").
* The tone ("shēngdiào" 聲調 "sound intonation"), using the same four tone names as used in the "Qieyun". These tones differ from the four tones of Standard Mandarin, though related tone systems are retained by many southern languages. In particular, syllables ending in stops (-p, -t or -k) were classified as the entering tone of the corresponding syllables with nasal endings (-m, -n or -ng).
* The least understood classification is the four "děng" (等 "class", "grade" or "group"), which Bernhard Karlgren translated as "divisions" while other linguists prefer "grades". The exact nature of the grades is still open to debate, but is believed to describe palatalization (transcribed as the presence or absence of -j- or -i-), retroflex features, vowel quality (high vs. low) or some combination of these.To illustrate the significance of "děng", the science of classifying vowels is called "děngyùn" (等韻 "division rime") and traditional phonology is "děngyùnxué" (等韻學 "division rime study").

For example, "Yùnjìng" comprises 43 charts covering 16 rime groups.The following is the first chart (the arabic numerals are modern annotations):

The five big characters on the right-hand side read "Nèi zhuǎn dìyī kāi" (內轉第一開). In "Yùnjìng", each chart is called a "zhuǎn" (lit. "turn"). The characters indicate that the chart is the first (第一) one in the book, and that the syllables of this chart are "inner" (內) and "open" (開).

Although the preface of "Yunjing" lists 36 onsets, the table contains only 23 columns, which means some columns represent more than one onset. This is possible because some onsets only combine with some particular grades of rime: say onset A only combines with grade 1 and 4, and onset B only with grade 2 and 3, then the same column can represent both onset A and B. This kind of space-saving representation can cause confusion, and results in so-called "jiǎděng" (假等 "pseudo-grade"): for example, a syllable shown to be grade-4 on the table is in fact grade-3, and finds itself at the grade-4 position only because the slot has been occupied by another syllable.

The 16 rows are grouped by tone into four "yùn", or rimes (represented by the level-toned 東, the rising-toned 董, the departing-toned 送, and the entering-toned 屋). Each "yùn" has a row for each of the four grades. The symbol ○ indicates that there is no character with that particular syllable.

The pronunciation of a character as indicated by "fanqie" spelling can be known by looking at such a chart. However, due to sound change, the traditional "fanqie" spellings and the rime tables may become incongruous. In such cases some special rules, called "menfa" 門法, have been made to resolve the incongruities.

Notes

References

*cite book |last=Baxter |first=William H. |title=A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology |series=Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs; 64 |year=1992 |publisher=Mouton de Gruyter |location=Berlin, New York |isbn=3-11-012324-X
*cite book |last=Branner |first=David Prager (ed.) |title=The Chinese Rime Tables: Linguistic Philosophy and Historical-Comparative Phonology |series=Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series IV: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory; 271 |year=2006 |publisher=John Benjamins |location=Amsterdam |isbn=90-272-4785-4
*cite book |last=Norman |first=Jerry |title=Chinese |series=Cambridge Language Surveys |year=1988 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-22809-3

ee Also

*Origin of hangul

External links

* [http://www.sungwh.freeserve.co.uk/chinese/rhymetable.htm Rhyme Tables] , Dylan W.H. Sung