Pitch Realization in Khitan

Abstract

The aim of this article is to reconstruct the word/phrase pitch pattern in Khitan, an extinct language related to the Mongolic languages that was spoken in Manchuria and northern China during the Liao dynasty (907–1125). We do this by using transcriptional materials of Khitan and Liao Chinese, a local variety of Chinese spoken in that region at that time. First, as preliminary work, we critically review the special notation for tones in Khitan Small Script transcriptions of Chinese words, and reanalyze it from a quantitative perspective, thereby revealing a significant aspect regarding the tonal system of Liao Chinese. Building on this finding, we quantitatively analyze the Chinese characters used for transcribing Khitan words according to their position within the word, showing a clear preference for specific tonal categories based on position. Furthermore, taking into consideration the temporal variability within Liao Chinese and the pitch patterns in modern Mongolic languages, we interpret the tonal preference in Chinese transcriptions of Khitan words to mean that Khitan was a phrase language with an L tone at the left edge and an H tone at the right edge of every word or phrase.