Studies in the Phonology of Asian Languages. VI. Complex Syllable Nuclei in Vietnamese

Abstract

A phonetic and phonemic analysis of the three complex nuclei of Vietnamese (Hanoi dialect) spelled (1) ye-, -ie-, -ia, (2) -u'o'-, -u'a, (3) -uo-, -ua, was carried out, using the sound spectrograph. The relative domains of the target qualities of the complex nuclei were established and then compared with those of the eleven simple vowels. The first segments of the complex nuclei were easily established as being the same as /i/, /tu/, and /u/. The second segments, which have been variously analysed, were found to occupy three distinct domains which led toour analysis of them as phonemically /e/, /a/, and /o/. Further analysis was done, varying the environment with regard to type of syllable, tone, initial and final consonants. Regardless of environment, a relative distinctiveness of domain seems to be maintained and this, together with distributional characteristics, supports our final phonemic analysis of the complex nuclei as /ie/, /we/, and /uo/.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1968
Accession Number
AD0665979

Entities

People

  • Mieko S. Han

Organizations

  • University of Southern California

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Amplitude
  • Commerce
  • Consonants
  • Contracts
  • Environment
  • Language
  • Linguistics
  • Materials
  • Military Research
  • Phonemes
  • Phonetics
  • Phonology
  • Spectrographs
  • Speech
  • Steady State
  • Syllables
  • United States

Readers

  • Speech Processing/Speech Recognition.
  • Theoretical Analysis.