漢語影響圈語言中的非洲型聲調

‘African’ Tone in the Sinosphere

語言學家經常將聲調語言劃入非洲、東亞等幾種「類型」。本文記錄分布於「東亞聲調區」之藏緬語種南部羌語綿篪話之聲調體系。南部羌語在聲調發展階段受漢語影響甚鉅，然而綿篪話之聲調反而貼近「非洲型」，與「漢語型」或「東亞型」差距較大。本文對綿篪話聲調之「非洲型」與「漢語型」類型比例進行評估，並指出非洲型聲調特徵其實也廣泛存在於羌語支各種語言中。非洲語言與羌語聲調表徵相近，主要歸因於彼此在語詞結構及長度方面之共性。

Linguists often refer to tonal languages as belonging to ‘types’ ─ African, East Asian, etc. This paper documents the tonal system of the Mianchi dialect of Southern Qiang, a Tibeto-Burman language located squarely in the East Asian tone environment. Although tone has developed in Southern Qiang under heavy influence from Chinese, the tone system found in Mianchi fits an ‘African’ typology much better than it does a ‘Chinese’ or ‘East Asian’ type. The degrees of African-ness and Chinese-ness are evaluated, and African-style features are shown to be lurking throughout the Qiangic family. Similarities of word structure and word length between African and Qiangic languages are held responsible for the similarities.