ABSTRACT
Shanghai has been described as having maintained (1) the historical tripartite division of syllable-initial plosives and affricates and (2) the historical voiced and voiceless distinction of the syllable-initial fricatives (Chao 1928; Sherard 1972; Xu and Tang 1988). However, spectrographic data from the native speakers of Shanghai in their late forties show that the initials [b d g] in a large majority of the monosyllables in isolation are voiceless. In Chao (1928, 1936), the initials [b d g] were transcribed as [p t k]. The breathiness was described as being realized not before but on the following vowel. This was confirmed by experimental data in Cao and Maddieson (1992) and Ren (1995). Spectrographic data also show that the initials [v z d gw] are more often pronounced as voiceless than voiced, and, as for [], it is always voiceless. The voiced impression of the historical syllable-initial consonants [b d g gw d v z ] is attributable to the breathiness of the following vowel associated with a low tonal onset. These syllable-initial consonants also differ from [p t k kw t f s h], in that the former become ‘true’ voiced sounds in medial position, whereas the latter remain voiceless. The breathiness of the vowels associated with a low tonal onset has led scholars (Xu and Tang 1988) to transcribe the syllable-initial sonorants as [m n & l w] and those followed by a non-breathy vowel as [ʔm ʔn ʔ ʔ& ʔl ʔw]. The transcriptions are misleading, as the sonorants are neither preceded by the voiced glottal frication, nor are they glottalized. The consonant system in Shanghai consists of twelve plosives [p ph b t th d k kh g kw kwh gw], one glottal stop [ʔ], four nasals [m n &], nine fricatives [f v s z h hw], five affricates [ts tsh t th d], two approximants [w j], and one lateral liquid [l] as shown in the following consonant chart.
