- Sol Saporta, “On the Use of Zero in Morphemics,” Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguists, Ed. Horace G. Lunt (The Hague, 1964), pp. 228–230, and the subsequent discussion on pp. 230–231.
- See, e.g., Fang-kuei Li, “The Zero Initial and the Zero Syllabic,” Language, XLII (1966), 300–302; E. J. A. Henderson, “Prosodies in Siamese: A Study in Synthesis,” Asia Major, I (1949), 189–215; and E. G. Pulleyblank, “An Interpretation of the Vowel Systems of Old Chinese and of Written Burmese,” Asia Major, X, Part 2 (1963), 200–221.
- William Haas, “Zero in Linguistic Description,” Studies in Linguistic Analysis (Oxford, Eng., 1957), p. 47.
- V. B. Kasevich, “Funkcionalnyje nuli i ix mesto v fonologičeskoj sisteme bir- manskogo jazyka,” Narody Azii i Afriki, X (1970), 129–134.
- Haas, p. 33.
- L. V. Bondarko, “Struktura sloga i xarakteristiki fonem,” Voprosy Jazykoznanija, XVI (1967), 34–46.
- We say in a sense because it is difficult to argue that, say, the Russian and really are the designators (les signifiants) of the zero ending: the vowels are permanantly present after final consonants (i.e., also in those cases when no zero ending is perceivable).
- By the monosyllabicity of these languages we mean the monosyllabicity of their morphemes, not of their words.
- See, e. g., M. V. Gordina, “O različnyx funkcional ‘nyx zvukovyx jedinicax jazyka,” in Issledovanija po fonologiji Moscow, 1966), and T'ung-ho Tung, “Bipartite Division of Syllables in Chinese Phonology,” Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguists, p. 203.
- The admittance of more than one zero does not contradict the earlier definition of zero. The discussion that follows will show that at each individual level just one zero can exist.
- In discussing Chinese material we follow the presentation of the Chinese phonological system as found in A. Dragunov and E. Dragunova, “Struktura sloga v kitajskom nacional'nom jazyke,” Sovetskoje Vostokovedenije, I (1955), 57–74.
- The system of bracketing in transcriptional notation is adopted in the present article as follows: the slant lines are used only for presenting the initials and finals, while in all the other cases we use square brackets. The discrepancies in transcriptions employed for Chinese and Burmese reflect the existing tradition.
- See Tung Shao-wen, Yü-yin ch'ang-shih (Peking, 1958), p. 52.
- The position of Chinese zero initial in the word-internal syllables can be occupied by a number of consonants or semivowels whose nature is strictly dependent on the preceding final—or, rather, on its terminal (e.g., [k'an]+ [a] →:[k'an na], [tš'an] +[an]→[tš'an nan], [t'a]+ [a]→ , [xu]+ [a]→ [xu ṷa]). In all of these cases we should not treat corresponding consonants and semivowels as allo-exponents of the zero initial but rather should speak of phonological (though conditioned) alternation of such finals as /ø1;an/, nan/, and the like. This analysis is confirmed particularly by the fact that such alternating finals can be rendered into writing by different characters (e.g., when [a], but for and for [ṷa]).
- A seeming contradiction to the aforesaid is the existence of such syllables as [iu] and [ui]. However, the syllable-closing [u] and [i] in those syllables are not centrals but terminals. The centrals of the syllables are missing under the first and second tones, resulting in the finals of the type mentioned. This omission of the central (which is not to be found under the third and fourth tones) is not strictly obligatory, for the central is sometimes present in the form of [ə].
- The system mentioned is traditional for Chinese philology and goes back in its basic principles to the Sung epoch (Ssˇma Kuang). See, e.g., Tung Shao-wen, pp. 84–92.
- See Tung Shao-wen, ibid.
- It seems that the entering into the tone-marked portion of the syllable should be treated differently, depending on the direction in which the tone “spreads” and affects certain elements. Thus, the incorporation into the tone-marked domain of the elements found to the right of the vocalic nucleus can be seen as a sort of phonetic “inertia” of the tone which, therefore, does not have any phonological implications. On the other hand, the same treatment with respect to the left-situated elements can hardly be explained by simple anticipation—it usually has certain phonological implications.
- The dependency here is unilateral: the zero value of a higher-level unit implies the same value for its lower-level constituents (see p. 368), while the reverse does not hold true.
- In those languages in which the syllable has no canonic shape, it is, perhaps, unreasonable to postulate zero phonemes. Thus, postulating a zero vowel (by which [ə] is meant) for the French phonological system (Roman Jakobson and John Lotz, “Notes on the French Phonemic Pattern,” Word, V [1949], 151–158) seems particularly unconvincing. More feasible here, perhaps, is the conception of Martinet, according to which the analyst should rather speak of two (free) variants of respective consonants (e.g., [d] and [də]—vocalized and unvocalized (André Martinet, A Functional View of Language [Oxford, Eng., 1962], p. 12).
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