時量與連綴：以倈語為例

Timing and Alignment: A Case Study of Lai

時間計量是人類語言中語音與音韻組成不可或缺的要素。本文從哈卡倈語的時計效應探討音段時長、音節內音段間的時計關係、以及聲調與音段的連綴。哈卡倈語雖然是印度和緬甸北部的一種藏緬語，但是音節結構與聲調型態卻頗類似“漢語圈＂的語言。哈卡倈語有值得注意的前行元音與韻尾輔音之間的抵補音長，而其聲調連綴時的時阻亦較其他語言為短。本文在討論中，將著重分析倈語的時量效應何者來自語言通則、何者屬於個別語言特徵、以及這些效應在計量類型學上的地位等問題。

The timing of events in speech is a critical element of the phonetic and phonological organization of language and of individual languages. In this paper some aspects of segment duration, the syllable-internal timing relationships among segments, and the alignment of tones and segments in a controlled set of data from Hakha Lai are analyzed. Hakha Lai, although spoken in Northern Burma and India, has syllable structure and tone patterns that are reminiscent of the languages of the ‘Sinosphere’. Among the effects observed in this language are considerable duration compensation between a preceding vowel and a coda consonant, and a smaller lag in tone alignment than has been observed in many others. In the discussion, an effort is made to partition the observed effects into those that are universal, including those that can be predicted from Lai’s place in a quantitative typology of languages, and those that are language-specific.