Phonology
The phonology of Old Chinese has been reconstructed using a variety of evidence, including the phonetic components of Chinese characters, rhyming practice in the Classic of Poetry and descriptions of later stages of the language, especially the Qieyun, a rhyme dictionary published in 601. Although many details are still disputed, recent formulations are in substantial agreement on the core issues. For example, the Old Chinese initial consonants recognized by Li Fang-Kuei and William Baxter are given below, with Baxter's (mostly tentative) additions given in parentheses:
| Stop or Affricate | Nasal | Lateral | Fricative/ Approximant |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| voiceless | aspirate | voiced | voiceless | voiced | voiceless | voiced | voiceless | voiced | |
| Labials | *p | *pʰ | *b | *m̥ | *m | ||||
| Dentals | *t | *tʰ | *d | *n̥ | *n | *l̥ | *l | (*r̥) | *r |
| Sibilants | *ts | *tsʰ | *dz | *s | (*z) | ||||
| Palatals | (*j̊) | (*j) | |||||||
| Velars | *k | *kʰ | *ɡ | *ŋ̊ | *ŋ | ||||
| Labiovelars | *kʷ | *kʷʰ | *ɡʷ | *ŋ̊ʷ | *ŋʷ | ||||
| Laryngeals | *ʔ | *h | (*ɦ) | ||||||
| Labiolaryngeals | *ʔʷ | *hʷ | (*w) | ||||||
Most scholars reconstruct clusters of s- with other consonants, and possibly other clusters as well, but this area remains unsettled.
In recent reconstructions, such as the widely accepted system of Baxter, the rest of the Old Chinese syllable consists of
- an optional medial *-r-, *-j- or the combination *-rj-
- one of six vowels:
| *i | *ə | *u |
| *e | *a | *o |
- an optional coda, which could be a glide *-j or *-w, a nasal *-m, *-n or *-ŋ, or a stop *-p, *-t, *-k or *-kʷ,
- an optional post-coda *-ʔ or *-s.
In such systems, Old Chinese has no tones; the tonal distinctions of Middle Chinese are believed to be conditioned by the Old Chinese post-codas.
Read more about this topic: Old Chinese