On the Question of Tense and Lax Vowels in Naxi — With a Discussion of Research Methods for the Historical Phonological Evolution of Yi-Burmese
In this rebuttal article, Dai Qingxia disputes Yang Huandian's claim that Naxi has a substantial tense/lax vowel opposition. Comparing his own field recordings (and those of native-speaker linguist He Fayuan) against Yang's transcriptions at multiple Naxi dialect points (Dayan, Qinglong, Baoshan, and others), Dai argues that words Yang reads as containing a tense vowel actually contain the retroflex central vowel 'er,' so the apparent tense/lax contrast is really a tongue-position contrast between 'i' and 'er.' He cites agreement from several native-speaker Naxi linguists and the late Fu Maoji, and notes that Naxi's supposed tense vowels fail to show the regular cross-language correspondence patterns that genuine tense/lax pairs show elsewhere in the Yi branch (e.g., Hani, Lisu). Dai concludes Naxi has only lax vowels, differing from Yang's conclusion, though the underlying data source breaks off before Dai's own explanation of the mismatch is completed.
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