Rethinking the Medials of Old Chinese: Where are the r's?
This paper re-examines the traditional reconstruction of Old Chinese medial *-r- from the viewpoint of Tibeto-Burman comparison. It concludes that it is more natural from a typological perspective and more compelling from a comparative perspective to reconstruct *r- as a prefix rather than a medial before acute consonants, and perhaps in some cases before grave consonants as well. Such a revision has important implications for our understanding of Old Chinese syllable structure and derivational morphology.
2009 ◽
Vol 18
(4)
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pp. 361-395
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1997 ◽
Vol 52
(10)
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pp. 1147-1148
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