英文摘要 |
This paper examines the realization and behavior of the zero onset in Mandarin in Optimality Theory (OT; Paul & Smolensky 1993) and the results show that OT successfully account for the rather complicated behavior of the zero onset. Important findings include: (a) The realization of the zero onset in surface is due to the high-ranked constraint Onset; (b) the zero onset of non-high vowels tend to surface as unmarked segments, the choice of which is a matter of free variation; (c) the zero onset of high vowels, under the influence of contextual markedness constraints, surfaces as corresponding glides; and (d) the asymmetrical behavior of the zero onset in stressed syllable and in unstressed syllable results from high-ranked output-to-output correspondence constraints. Moreover, we conclude from the analyses that the realization of the zero onset in Mandarin involves this constraint ranking schema: OO-Identity ' contextual markedness ' context-free markedness. |