Outstanding problems 13

The conventional reconstruction of PT phonology outlined above has played a major role in the historical study of Tai languages but many questions still await solutions. These problems include the unaccounted onset correspondence sets, the complexity of the vocalic system, the peculiarities of the displaced NT language Saek, spoken in northeastern Thailand, and the abstractness of tones. In this sub-section, I briefly introduce the issues and then assess them from a holistic perspective.

The first problem concerns onset correspondences. Although the conventional reconstruction nicely accounts for the majority of the correspondence sets, minor sets of data are still left as puzzles. The best-know of these sets is probably the so-called “voicing alternation,” which refers to an apparent discrepancy regarding voicing of the onsets in different dialects. This discrepancy is generally described as a disagreement between SWT and CT on one hand, and NT on the other. For a sizeable set of eytma, reflexes in SWT and CT point to earlier voiceless onsets while their NT counterparts indicate original voiced onsets (Gedney 1989a). Take the etyma ‘to arrive’ and ‘ripe, cooked’ as examples. Based on SWT and CT reflexes alone, they should be reconstructed with *tʰ and *s- respectively. In contrast, they should be reconstructed as *d- and *z- respectively if only NT reflexes are taken into consideration. The conventional reconstruction fails to account for this set of data.

In addition to the “voicing alternation” just described, there are many other sets of onset correspondences that still await explanation. These data sets often involve a small subset of etyma but the correspondence seems too systematic to be disregarded as irregular. One example is *tr- which Li reconstructs for etyma like ‘eye’ and ‘to die’. This cluster is reflected as /t-/ in the SWT language Siamese and the NT dialect of Po-ai, but as /h-/ in the CT dialect of Lungchow. At first glance this choice of reconstruction seems adequate but data from other varieties cast doubt on this

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treatment of the correspondence. In particular, the CT dialect of Bao Yen from my own fieldwork regularly has /pʰj-/ for this set of etyma, indicating that the original PT onset must have contained a labial segment. The conventional reconstruction has no way to account for this correspondence.

The second problem for the conventional reconstruction is the complexity of the vowel system. As apparent in the review above, Li’s reconstructed PT vocalic system contains a massive set of complex vowels with very fine phonemic contrasts. Even after re-interpreting many of his complex vowels as sequence of vowels and glides, the problem still remains equally damaging. A large part of this problem has to do with the paradigm of data sometimes referred to as “Gedney’s Puzzle” (Gedney 1972b). This problematic paradigm of vowel correspondence consists of four sets of vowel correspondences involving high vowels. A number of Tai etyma unequivocally go back to PT simple vowels *i, *ɯ, and *u in the conventional reconstruction. Similarly, another set of etyma clearly go back to Li’s *ɤj, *ɤw, and *ɤɰ. However, in addition to these two sets, there are a number of items that seem to point to earlier *i, *u, and *ɯ in some languages but *ɤj, *ɤw, and *ɤɰ in others. To complicate the picture, the reverse patterns also exist. The massive vowel system in the conventional reconstruction is in large part an attempt to account for this paradigm of data.

The third challenge for the conventional reconstruction of PT is the aberrancy of Saek, a displaced NT language spoken in northeast Thailand and central Laos. This language shows many peculiarities that cannot be reconciled within the conventional model of PT phonology (Gedney 1989c; Haudricourt 1963b). For example, there are two reflexes of the PT sound that Li reconstructs as *ˀb- in Saek. The first one is the expected /b-/ as in ‘leaf’ and ‘to fly’. The other reflex is /v-/ as in ‘shoulder’, and ‘thin’. This pattern is left unexplained in Li (1977) as there does not seem to have been any conditioning environment for the split of PT *ˀb-. Another example of Saek

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peculiarities, is the famous /-l/, found nowhere else in Tai. While recognizing that Saek final -l might have been inherited from PT, Li does not include a final liquid in the reconstruction due to lack of data.

The last but in no way less challenging issue for the conventional reconstruction is the abstractness of PT tones. Although it is well-established that PT had four tonal categories, it is not clear what they were like. In other words, it is unknown what the contrastive characteristics of *A, *B, and *C, were and how *D related to the other three categories. The conventional reconstruction remains silent about the phonological content of these categories.

From a holistic perspective, these problems largely stem from one serious shortcoming. In particular, Li does not address explicitly the structure of the PT prosodic word and its role in the reconstruction. Since words serve as the basic domains for comparative reconstruction, the researcher’s assumptions about the phonotactics of the prosodic word in the PT inevitably predetermine the reconstruction. Li’s reconstruction assumes at least implicitly that PT was typologically very similar to its modern descendants. Among other things, it assumes that like all modern Tai languages PT was monosyllabic. It also assumes a priori that the PT vowel system did not have a quantity contrast. These are assumptions that cannot be taken for granted. Recent research (e.g. Benedict 1982; Brunelle 2008; Ferlus 1975, 1992; Thurgood 1996, 2005) has shown how language contact leads to restructuring of the canonical word shape, how monosyllabic tonal languages arise from languages that have non-tonal polysyllabic canonical roots, etc. For example, all modern Chinese varieties have fully-developed tone systems, but it is uncontroversial that their ancestor Old Chinese was non-tonal (Baxter 1992). Therefore, from a holistic perspective, the issue of the PT prosodic word must not be taken for granted in the search for a solution to these problems.

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In addition, these problems result from lack of comparative data. Li’s Handbook of Comparative Tai (Li 1977) is an honorable piece of work because it brings together lexicographical data from various dialects available during those early decades. However, as Gedney pointed out in 1967, most major Tai-speaking areas were still understudied (Gedney 1989b). Only for Thailand and southern Guizhou were dialect studies on fine geographical grids available. As evidenced by the discovery of Saek, data from previously unknown dialects may lead us to question old assumptions and provide new insights into the reconstruction of PT phonology.