Papers by Bill Baxter
Word formation in Old Chinese
New Approaches to Chinese Word Formation
Reconstructing Old Chinese uvulars in the Baxter-Sagart system (Version 0.99)
Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale, 2009
This paper discusses the reconstruction of uvular and labio-uvular stops in Old Chinese, original... more This paper discusses the reconstruction of uvular and labio-uvular stops in Old Chinese, originally proposed by Pan Wuyun. The following two improvements are proposed: (1) the Old Chinese non labialized voiced uvular stop evolved to Middle Chinese y- (???) rather than hj- (???) in Pan's theory (which implies that Middle Chinese y- has two sources in Old Chinese: *1- and *G-); (2) uvulars and labio-uvulars evolve to MC velars when preceded by a minor syllable. This explains why velars and uvulars frequently alternate in phonetic series. The article also explores the evolution of (labio)uvulars in the context of different prefixes.
Review of Ringe (1992): On Calculating the Factor of Chance in Language Comparison
Diachronica, 1996
Bulletin of Chinese Linguistics, 2016
It is proposed that oc pharyngealized onset consonants—that is, ‘type-A’ onset consonants—arose o... more It is proposed that oc pharyngealized onset consonants—that is, ‘type-A’ onset consonants—arose out of Proto-Sino-Tibetan plain consonants followed by geminate vowels separated by a pharyngeal fricative. When the first copy of the geminate vowel fell, the initial consonants formed clusters with the pharyngeal fricative, evolving into the oc pharyngealized consonants we reconstruct. In the Kuki-Chin branch of Tibeto-Burman, the pharyngeal fricative fell, and long vowels resulted. This proposal supposes a statistical correlation between Kuki-Chin long vowels and oc type-A words on the one hand, and between Kuki-Chin short vowels and oc type-B words on the other, as originally proposed by S. Starostin. A significant statistic bearing on forty-three probable Chinese-Kuki-Chin cognates supports this correlation. Thus reconstructed, a precursor language of Proto-Sino-Tibetan was aligned with Proto-Austronesian and Proto-Austroasiatic in exhibiting a surface constraint against monomoraic f...
Language and Linguistics, 2012
This paper presents the treatment of the Old Chinese *s-prefix in the Baxter-Sagart system of Old... more This paper presents the treatment of the Old Chinese *s-prefix in the Baxter-Sagart system of Old Chinese reconstruction. The main functions of the prefix are to increase the valency of verbs and to derive oblique deverbal nouns. The phonetic evolutions to Middle Chinese of *s-with different kinds of OC root initials are discussed. Two salient features of the proposed system are (1) that *splus plain sonorants go to MC s-or sr-, and (2) that s-preceding voiced obstruents becomes voiced. Problems within a competing proposal by Mei Tsu-Lin, in which OC *s-devoices both sonorants and voiced obstruents, are pointed out.
Time Depth in Historical Linguistics, eds. C. …, 2000
Unlike synchronic linguists, who can ask their consultants for additional data and examples, hist... more Unlike synchronic linguists, who can ask their consultants for additional data and examples, historical linguists are, for the most part, stuck with the data we have. Only rarely are we able to add to the corpus of available texts, or find additional examples of a rare combination of ...
Chinese/Sinitic by Bill Baxter
This paper presents the treatment of the Old Chinese *s-prefix in the Baxter-Sagart system of Old... more This paper presents the treatment of the Old Chinese *s-prefix in the Baxter-Sagart system of Old Chinese reconstruction. The main functions of the prefix are to increase the valency of verbs and to derive oblique deverbal nouns. The phonetic evolutions to Middle Chinese of *s-with different kinds of OC root initials are discussed. Two salient features of the proposed system are (1) that *splus plain sonorants go to MC s-or sr-, and (2) that s-preceding voiced obstruents becomes voiced.
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Papers by Bill Baxter
Chinese/Sinitic by Bill Baxter