Er-suffixation in Chinese monophthongs: phonological analysis and phonetic data

Among the seven (not counting /er/) single vowels in standard Chinese [i, y z , , u, ɤ where z , ] stand for the high vowels following dentialveolars and retroflexes), previous studies have analyzed the surface forms of er-suffixed /u, ɤ, a/ as the original vowel followed by either [ɹ] (Chao, 1968; Cheng, 1973; Pulleyblank, 1984; Lin, 1989; among others) or [ʅ] (i.e. [ ], Li, 1986), while the er-suffixed non-back vowels are said to surface as a concatenation of the original vowel or its glide counterpart (if there is an underlying vowel) and [əɹ]. However, Duanmu (2007) offers a different analysis, where [ɚ] is the final component in the surface forms of all seven monophthongs. To evaluate these accounts, the present study investigated the production of the plain and er-suffixed monophthongs by eight native speakers from Beijing. Our data show (1) that there is no evidence for a separate [ɹ] coda in the surface forms, (2) that in addition to lowering of F3, er-suffixation has a centralizing effect on all monophthongs, and (3) that there is significant interaction between er-suffixation and vowel quality. The analysis of the Chinese er-suffixed monophthongs is thus revised as: [jɚ, ɥɚ, ɚ, ɚ; u˞; ɤ˞ ɚ ˞ ɚ ]. Our results also call for more careful phonetic study of similar processes cross-linguistically: while there is evidence for a coda /r/ in Scottish English (Wells, 1982), in other languages the underlying rhotic segment or syll ble seems to be re lized only s “r-coloring” on the preceding vowel (and perhaps an [ɚ] off-glide). If this is true, then for cases such as Yanggu (Lin, 2004) one may not have to posit surface syllables with both a complex onset (e.g. [tl]) and an /r/ coda.