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Title:
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A Study of Tibetan Phonological Transcription in Tangut Buddhism Fragments (in Chinese)
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Author:
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Chung-pui Tai
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Degree Awarded:
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Chinese Academy of Social Science
, Ph.D.
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Degree Date:
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2008
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Historical Linguistics
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Subject Language(s):
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Tibetan
Tangut
Classical Tibetan
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Director(s):
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Hong-yin Nie
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Abstract:
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This thesis investigates 20 Tangut fragments with phonological transcription in Tibetan which have been preserved in the Russian and British collections. First all Tangut characters and their Tibetan transcription are identified, followed by a rearrangement of them in the form of a manual. After that the phonological representation of Tibetan transcription is to be studied by a systematic comparison between Chinese transcriptions, Sanskrit transcriptions and the basic scripts, prescripts, superscripts, subscripts, postscripts and vowel symbols of Tibetan transcriptions. Such a comparison will give light to the phonological features of the Tibetan language in the 12th century. Finally the Tibetan transcription will be arranged by initial and rhyme categories of their corresponding Tangut characters. It contributes to the examination of the previous reconstruction schemes of Tangut phonology. Several suggestions are made on the modification of the reconstruction scheme.
This thesis classifies the Tibetan transcriptions into six types of handwriting, according to the origin of fragments, the content of fragments, and the writing style of Tibetan transcriptions. These handwritings are labeled from A to F. It demonstrates that, for the first time, the practice of transcription varied among different handwritings. It also points out that the inconsistency of transcription formats noticed by previous scholars are in fact due to different transcription practices among different handwritings, as manifested in the use of prescripts. Apart from that, this thesis gives a preliminary study on the content of the fragments.
In the analysis of phonological representation of the Tibetan transcription, it is found that the sound value of basic scripts remained the feature of Old Tibetan, that the voiced obstructs have not yet devoiced. The examination on prescripts gives further evidence to the observation made by Nie (1986) and Arakawa (1999). When prescripts g and d are combined with nasal basic scripts, they can change the syllable tone to the one corresponding to the level tone in Tangut. In the Tibetan transcription the prescript b marks the roundness of the syllable. Subscript w basically only appears in handwriting A, which also marks the roundness of the syllable. The phonological features as reflected by the Tibetan transcription suggest that the language of transcribers was a dialect in the stage between the Old Tibetan and the modern Kham dialect. Tones had already appeared, while the pronunciation of prescripts g and d had been weakened. Their sound values had lost when preceding nasal initials, leaving behind the function of distinguishing tones. However the feature was still preserved as a weak glottal stop in front of other consonants, as a result the corresponding parts can change the sound value of many non-nasal basic scripts to mark special consonants in Tangut. The sound of prescript b had shifted from a pre-initial to a co-articulated position, which marked the final stage before its disappearance.
By examining previous reconstruction schemes of Tangut phonology, it is evident from the Tibetan transcription that an ld- initial should be separated from the l- initial. Besides it points out that there are regular use of prescripts in front of voiced obstruents, suggesting that there should be a pre-initial consonant, which is probably a weak nasal or glottal sound.
Lastly, this thesis edited all the Tibetan transcriptions with Tangut characters into a manual, which included 524 Tangut characters in total. The manual also provides the information of initial and rhyme category of each Tangut character, together with their corresponding transcriptions in Tibetan, Chinese and Sanskrit. This manual provides the most detailed information ever on the Tibetan transcription of Tangut characters.
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Page Updated: 26-Nov-2009
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