論閩北方言弱化聲母的歷史來源

Reflections on the Historical Origin of the Northern Min ‘Softened Initials’

“弱化聲母＂和與四聲八調系統不符的調類是閩北方言引起廣泛學術興趣的兩大特點。這兩個現象互相關聯，且在中古音系中找不到來源。有很多學者認為這些現象或是由文白異讀引起的，或是受周圍方言影響而產生的。但是從閩北方言聲調系統的語音特徵可以看出，這兩個解釋方法好像都站不住腳。弱化聲母和與之相關的分調現象只能出於原始閩北時代已有的條件。但是這並不是說這些特殊的現象跟方言層次根本沒有關係，也有可能原始閩北語或者原始閩語是有外方言層次的。

The Northern Min dialects have two unusual and interrelated features: the presence (in some dialects) of voiced or lenited initials which do not correspond to the voiced initials of Middle Chinese, and a pattern of tonal splits that cannot be accounted for by conditioning factors of the Middle Chinese phonological system. Various scholars have proposed different hypotheses concerning the origin of these two features. Through analysis of their phonetic aspects, it is argued that the features cannot be the result of recent contact with nearby Wu dialects, but must have been conditioned by a feature found in Proto-Northern Min, most likely a series of voiced aspirate initials. The historical origin of those initials, including the possibility that they entered Proto-Northern Min from another dialect source, is explored.