ABSTRACT
The most important aspect of Nantong Chinese that makes it so different from any other variety of the Chinese language is its sound system, which consists of 39 syllable initials, 33 syllable finals and seven tones. Nantong Chinese has a very rich vowel system that, in addition to 14 ordinary vowels, includes very rare vowels, such as seven nasal vowels, i.e., [ĩ], [ũ], [ỹ], [ẽ], [õ], [ɛ̃], [ɑ̃]; five fricative vowels, i.e., [z̩], [ʒ̩], [ʒ̩ʷ], [ʋ̩], [β̩]; and seven glottal vowels, i.e., [iʔ], [uʔ], [yʔ], [əʔ], [oʔ], [ɛʔ], [ɔʔ]. This chapter is devoted to an in-depth exposition of the Nantong sound system, including the consonants, vowels and suprasegmental features, such as tones, stress and intonation. One difficult issue in Chinese phonetics is the treatment of the so-called syllable medial, which is an approximant ([j], [w] or [ɥ]) sandwiched between the syllable initial and syllable final. This book treats it as a secondary feature of the syllable-initial consonant, thereby denying its status as an independent segment.
