Hello all!
I am beginning to study Mandarin and I have a question concerning the phonemic/allophonic status of the sounds written as "e" and "o" in pinyin. Many textbooks consider /e/ and /o/ distinctive (phonemes) and say that Chinese has the following vowels: /a, e, o, i, u, ü, and a dark 'schwa'/. Yet, as to /e/ versus /o/, I am a bit confused, because I do not find clear cases in which two Mandarin words differ only in that one has a clear /e/ sound whereas the other has a clear /o/ sound.
In what seem to be the most favourable cases of evidence for /e/ versus /o/, pairs of words like "teng/tong", "geng/gong", "heng/hong", "zheng/zhong", etc. are written (in pinyin) as if the "e" and the "o" contrasted in sound, though, and, indeed, those are the obvious 'contrasts' there are, but the presence of "ng" enforces a 'dark [e]' sound that might be an allophone of 'schwa' rather than /e/(compare with the "e" in e.g., "xiè", "tie3", "jie4"), and the only "o" possible before /ng/ is so close to /u/ (= so different from the 'pure' [o] in "bo1", "po4", "fo2") that it might well be an allophone of /u/ rather than an /o/. So, I am looking for clearer contrasts, but I find very few (if any!). As far as I can tell, the situation is this:
There are a few Chinese syllables beginning by e/o (e.g., e4, ei1, en4, er4, and o2, ou1), but *eu, *oi, *on, *or, *eu do not exist, so no e/o contrasts arise in that small set.
Chinese has syllables ending in a dark "e" sound, e.g., ce, de, ge4, he1, je, ke4, le, me, ne, re, se, te, ze, with various tones, but *co, *do, *go, *ho, *jo, *ko, *lo, *no, *ro, *to and *zo do not exist; the only possible contrast in that pattern is between "me" and "mo", but "me" also has a dark schwa-like [e] sound and "mo4" seems to be pronounced /mwo/!; if so, again, the e/o contrast is dubious in this context.
Of syllables containing only a semi-consonant i/u/ü + e/o, Chinese has /ie/ = "ye3" and /uo/ = "wo3", but not *io,*ue, *üe or *üo, and, again, no e/o contrast.
As to syllables containing a (semi)consonant + e/o + a semi-vowel /i/, Chinese has bei, dei, gei, fei, hei, lei, mei, nei, pei, wei... (with various tones), but NOT *boi,*doi, *foi, *hoi, *loi, *moi, *noi, *poi, *woi; furthermore, if the final semivowel is /u/, Chinese has only /o/ in the core, never /e/, cf. dou, tou, gou, kou, lou, rou, you,... but not *beu, *deu, *geu, *leu, *meu, *reu, *yeu; hence, there are no e/o contrasts in that set either.
When a consonant precedes e/o and the syllable ends in "n", Chinese has ben, pen, fen, gen, hen, men, ren, zhen...(with various tones), but not *bon,*pon, *fon, *gon, *hon, *ron, *zhon...., etc.; other consonants do not precede either "e" or "o" (e.g., t, s, l, d...): no e/o contrasts here, either.
In syllables containing a consonant + e/o + ng (teng/tong, etc.), a few contrasts arise, yes, but only dark [e] and u-like [o] seem to contrast. If the former is a variant of schwa (not /e/), and the latter is a variant of /u/ (not /o/), there is no e/o contrast even here.
Finally, in the most complex type of Chinese syllable, it is possible to find a few consonants ("x", "q",...) + /i/ + "o" + /ng/, as in "xiong", "qiong", with a close u-like "o", but "e" does not occur in that context, apparently (cf. "*xieng", "*qieng",...).
That exhausts the possibilities, I think.
If all that is accurate, no contrasts justify saying that Chinese has different e/o phonemes. One may say that clear [e]-like and [o]-like sounds arise here and there (e.g., in "xie4", "tie1", versus"bo1", "po4"...), along with 'darker-[e]' or 'u-like-[o]' ones (e.g., in "he1", "che1", and "heng", "cheng", "teng"..., versus "hong", "chong", "tong"..., respectively), but since they never contrast with each other in any one context they cannot be said to be different phonemes. If so, Chinese has only /a, i, u, ü/, and a central vowel that may gain e-quality near /i/, o-quality near /u/, or schwa-quality in other contexts.
From my inspection of several bilingual dictionaries, I suspect that this is right, but I cannot be sure. If more clear contexts of contrast between "e" and "o" exist that I do not know of, Chinese might have /e/ and /o/ after all.
Question: Do clearer contrasts exist?
Thank you!
I am beginning to study Mandarin and I have a question concerning the phonemic/allophonic status of the sounds written as "e" and "o" in pinyin. Many textbooks consider /e/ and /o/ distinctive (phonemes) and say that Chinese has the following vowels: /a, e, o, i, u, ü, and a dark 'schwa'/. Yet, as to /e/ versus /o/, I am a bit confused, because I do not find clear cases in which two Mandarin words differ only in that one has a clear /e/ sound whereas the other has a clear /o/ sound.
In what seem to be the most favourable cases of evidence for /e/ versus /o/, pairs of words like "teng/tong", "geng/gong", "heng/hong", "zheng/zhong", etc. are written (in pinyin) as if the "e" and the "o" contrasted in sound, though, and, indeed, those are the obvious 'contrasts' there are, but the presence of "ng" enforces a 'dark [e]' sound that might be an allophone of 'schwa' rather than /e/(compare with the "e" in e.g., "xiè", "tie3", "jie4"), and the only "o" possible before /ng/ is so close to /u/ (= so different from the 'pure' [o] in "bo1", "po4", "fo2") that it might well be an allophone of /u/ rather than an /o/. So, I am looking for clearer contrasts, but I find very few (if any!). As far as I can tell, the situation is this:
There are a few Chinese syllables beginning by e/o (e.g., e4, ei1, en4, er4, and o2, ou1), but *eu, *oi, *on, *or, *eu do not exist, so no e/o contrasts arise in that small set.
Chinese has syllables ending in a dark "e" sound, e.g., ce, de, ge4, he1, je, ke4, le, me, ne, re, se, te, ze, with various tones, but *co, *do, *go, *ho, *jo, *ko, *lo, *no, *ro, *to and *zo do not exist; the only possible contrast in that pattern is between "me" and "mo", but "me" also has a dark schwa-like [e] sound and "mo4" seems to be pronounced /mwo/!; if so, again, the e/o contrast is dubious in this context.
Of syllables containing only a semi-consonant i/u/ü + e/o, Chinese has /ie/ = "ye3" and /uo/ = "wo3", but not *io,*ue, *üe or *üo, and, again, no e/o contrast.
As to syllables containing a (semi)consonant + e/o + a semi-vowel /i/, Chinese has bei, dei, gei, fei, hei, lei, mei, nei, pei, wei... (with various tones), but NOT *boi,*doi, *foi, *hoi, *loi, *moi, *noi, *poi, *woi; furthermore, if the final semivowel is /u/, Chinese has only /o/ in the core, never /e/, cf. dou, tou, gou, kou, lou, rou, you,... but not *beu, *deu, *geu, *leu, *meu, *reu, *yeu; hence, there are no e/o contrasts in that set either.
When a consonant precedes e/o and the syllable ends in "n", Chinese has ben, pen, fen, gen, hen, men, ren, zhen...(with various tones), but not *bon,*pon, *fon, *gon, *hon, *ron, *zhon...., etc.; other consonants do not precede either "e" or "o" (e.g., t, s, l, d...): no e/o contrasts here, either.
In syllables containing a consonant + e/o + ng (teng/tong, etc.), a few contrasts arise, yes, but only dark [e] and u-like [o] seem to contrast. If the former is a variant of schwa (not /e/), and the latter is a variant of /u/ (not /o/), there is no e/o contrast even here.
Finally, in the most complex type of Chinese syllable, it is possible to find a few consonants ("x", "q",...) + /i/ + "o" + /ng/, as in "xiong", "qiong", with a close u-like "o", but "e" does not occur in that context, apparently (cf. "*xieng", "*qieng",...).
That exhausts the possibilities, I think.
If all that is accurate, no contrasts justify saying that Chinese has different e/o phonemes. One may say that clear [e]-like and [o]-like sounds arise here and there (e.g., in "xie4", "tie1", versus"bo1", "po4"...), along with 'darker-[e]' or 'u-like-[o]' ones (e.g., in "he1", "che1", and "heng", "cheng", "teng"..., versus "hong", "chong", "tong"..., respectively), but since they never contrast with each other in any one context they cannot be said to be different phonemes. If so, Chinese has only /a, i, u, ü/, and a central vowel that may gain e-quality near /i/, o-quality near /u/, or schwa-quality in other contexts.
From my inspection of several bilingual dictionaries, I suspect that this is right, but I cannot be sure. If more clear contexts of contrast between "e" and "o" exist that I do not know of, Chinese might have /e/ and /o/ after all.
Question: Do clearer contrasts exist?
Thank you!