对立还是互补？——《人声论》之十二

许多专书认为“人声”是一种以其“短”而独立存在的声调。“人声”和别的调类的区别凭借音长，别的调类相互间的区别凭借音高。换言之，平上去人四声有两套划分标准。那么，怎样证明“人声”是一种独立存在的“短调”呢？一些专家称，是调长的对立。可是笔者发现，证明其“对立”的论述与音理不合，所谓“对立关系”不能确立。可行的解释应是，声调是以音高为声学特性的语音单位，人声音节上的声调和别的调类之间存在着互补关系，“平上去人”的“人”并不是一个独立调位，而是声调系统中某调位的条件变体。

Opposition or Complementation --On Ru Sheng （entering tune） （Part 12）

Many exports think that “Ru Sheng” is an independent tone because of its short feature. We use the length to distinguish Ru Sheng and other tones, while we differentiate others with pitch. In another word, there are two standards to divide Ping, Shang, Ru, Qu. In this way, how can we prove that Ru Sheng is an independent short tone？ Some experts claim that it＇ s the opposition of Long tone. However, the author of this article finds that such an idea does not match with the principles of pronunciation, that is, there is no confirmation of the opposite relationship. The acceptable explanation is that tone is a speech unit with the pitch as its acoustic characteristics, and that there exists the complemen- tary relationship between the tone of Ru Sheng and other types of tones, which is not an independent phoneme but a conditioned allophone of a tone of the System.