 So the things to deal with in this presentation is the initial constants of all Chinese compared to those of general languages. Actually, the original topic is kind of too vague, so I decided to focus on the mythology part. So this is one of the goals of this talk. And because William Jacques has done a similar presentation some 10 years ago, so here the other goal is to show how little progress has been made during this decade. I'll be presenting the things you might have known before, and I hope there are still new things, and I will present some comments on the Black Sense of Ground system of all Chinese. So first, I would like to talk about Czernik languages. So Czernik is a group of languages in the Southern Tibetan family. They're spoken mainly in Zhejiangwa Prefecture in Sichuan province, in China. So there are three sub-branches in Czernik, Czernik, Kroshtia, and Hopa. There are four Czernik languages, Situ, Jakug, Zodun, and Zbu. Many of you may be familiar with Situ, or even Jakug, thanks to Yihong here. And Zbu is currently studied by Gongxun Daer. He's now collected data from several dialects, and Kroshtia is now the subject of my PhD thesis. I'm working now on a core Kroshtia dialect, namely Wubsi, which is in red, on hand out. And I also possess data from several other dialects, Siyuewu dialect, Guaninqiao dialect, et cetera. And then Hopa, there are at least three Hopa languages, Staus, Doste, Geshi. Actually, Hopa is fancied by a lot of scholars working on Czernik languages, so there are actually a lot of articles on it. Czernik languages exhibit template morphology. That is to say that every verb is with a chain of epics, in our case prefixes, and every prefix has its own predetermined slot that no one can change. So here in table one, you can see the verbal template of Wubsi Kroshtia. We've got inflectional prefixes, derivational prefixes, and so on. So what do these mean to the initial system? Let's have a look at the derivational prefixes in the middle. They are mostly continental in Kroshtia. So they are consonants, but consonants with grammatical functions. So they are materials to make complex clusters. Actually, Kroshtia has the most complex consonant cluster system, and sign of divacty, probably. So every scholar who has studied Kroshtia has to test it more than 300 consonant clusters in each dialect, and some words even have a cluster of five consonants. You can see these examples at the beginning of section two with examples of four or five consonants consecutively. So for example, in Guanyin Tal, you've got an example with five consonants, which means to German it, and in Wubsy, you've got something like Einstein's dip. So just take a quick look at what we do. So the most important thing is, especially in verbs, nearly every consonant has a function. For instance, in one A, R is reciprocal, and N there is auto-benefective, and the Z there is causative, infixed between the stem, and the Y here may be a historical prefix too. So nearly every consonant in the cluster actually means something. And in one B, this example is how six prefixes can come together to form a finite verb. He didn't cause me to kill myself for his sake. Having seen all these examples, let's turn to some old Chinese forms. In two, example two, reconstructed by Baxin and Sagar, I actually, I randomly picked several examples with complex clusters. So what I want to share with you is how Germanic languages help all Chinese out when we're in doubt. So I want to talk mainly about parallel morphology between Germanic and Chinese. So some of you may have the same feeling as I do. When you open a book like old Chinese construction, when it comes to morphology, you may find prefixes there, proposed there are somewhat ad hoc. A lot of prefixes have too many functions, some of the functions are undetermined. Actually, ideally, I think in a reconstruction, if we got one thing right, we got everything right. If the phonology of the current reconstruction reflects exactly the monotone of my ancestors, it must be indubitably correct morphology-wise. But if we just look at Chinese alone, we might not have many insights about morphology. So maybe we should now turn to related languages that preserve a certain amount of morphology to do the comparative work. In Baxin and Sagar 2014, we have already seen how the authors looked to better learn the comparativism. They say the fact that some Tibetan languages have such and such an ethics with such and such a function is merely suggestive but cannot be decisive for reconstructing the morphology of old Chinese. I thoroughly agree with this point, but even if it's only suggestive, it's still seductive. If we find anything with nearly the same appearance and function, then it will be a strong piece of evidence that our reconstruction is right. So it surely makes us more confident. Okay, let's get down to business. First, I would like to talk about the tea prefix that we have seen earlier this afternoon. The pre-initial tea, tea as a pre-initial, is reconstructed to account for a number of series that show its evidence, for instance, the claim to be read with the phonetic claim, vein of water. So if you wanted to derive a Jizu character in middle Chinese, you must want to reconstruct a tea pre-initial there to account for the sound change to drum, for instance. Some of the tea pre-initials are considered only part of the stem, some of them prefixes. There are two tea prefixes in old Chinese according to the book. It forms first, it forms intransitive verbs and for instance, to kut, to go out, to come out and to nip, to fear, something like that. And it occurs in inalienable nouns. Just see the examples in example three. So these are some examples of inalienable nouns with the tea prefix. So this is what we are seeking. Actually, in Jaringic languages, we do find a similar prefix. For instance, in Jakug, there is a prefix for indefinite or generic possessor, for inalienably possessed nouns. And the indefinite possessive prefix has two variants, de and de. The distribution is actually lexically determined. So we can see the examples in four. In four A, de is the indefinite possessed noun prefix. Dezio means oneself and you can substitute with other prefixes of possession. With R in four B, you have azio, which means myself and nezio, you and in four D. Ezio, third person singular, himself. In five, you've got more nouns. So notice that the word for elbow is cognate to Chinese, the grub jowl. In Jakug, it's this grub. And you can also find traces in trostya in six. Dver means fist, and it's biat, which probably comes from tbiat plate, and denat sos. So that's it for the tea prefix. And then section five, anti-causative and causative construction. Maybe some of you still remember, in 2012, there has been a debate in the journal Language and Linguistics. Meizulin, 2012, was the first article in that journal, and Segar Baxter, 2012, the second. It was about the famous voicing alternation in old Chinese. Actually Meizulin holds that voicing alternation is due to an S prefix to an intransitive voiced base. The S prefix was causative, and the voiced consonant. Well, Segar Baxter think that it was an N, capital N prefix added to a transitive voiceless base, and reconstructs the S pre-initial for other purposes. It is nearly undoubtful that Meizulin was wrong if we just take a look at general languages. But let's have a look at the Chinese examples given in Baxter and Segar, they're a construction first. So in example seven, to defeat prats, and to sub-defeat, in prats later became brats with the voiced consonant. And debt to bend, to break, transitively. Debt to bend, intransitively, and the famous to see, gens, and gens to appear. The Japook list is in table two. We can see that the intransitive counterpart parts are pre-nasalized. This looks so much like the Baxter and Segar reconstruction. And it's even productive in Japook. I'd like to draw your attention to the last word in table two. D'r to disperse comes from Tibetan d'r. And, but it's intransitive counterpart on d'r. It's not a Tibetan loan word. So it is actually invented inside the Japook language. Table three are the examples in Zbujarong provided by Gongxin, also with pre-nasalization on the anti-colonial counterpart. In table four, you've got a list in Wubzik cross steps. Even though the intransitive counterpart are not pre-nasalized, we're confident that voice stops in cross step come from pre-nasalized stops. There is a sound change to account for this, a change shift. So the direction must be from a voiceless to a pre-nasalized verb, which later became a voiced verb, a voiced initial. Therefore, the reconstruction of Baxter's cigar does make sense from a Japook point of view. And now what about the S-positive? Baxter's cigar lists some examples of positives with an S prefix in example eight. Now hand out. D'r to rise and D'r to lift up and G'r to speak frankly and G'r to complain to cues and D'r to match and D'r to estimate and G'e to see, to look and S'geeth to show. So we can see they do have them. The S does have a causative function. So a sibling causative is present in a lot of sound-dependent languages in Jaeyong-e as well. The S causative in cross step is somewhat very complicated. There are a lot of morphophonological processes leading to really complex consonants, constant clusters. If we look at the Surya-u dialect of Trostya, here in example nine, you have clusters like something like that. Strasvok, it's nine, eight. So yeah, actually two of the four examples in Baxter and cigar are still a little bit doubtful. Sengats to complain to cues and to shows, actually there is some suffix S there. So which one is the causative? The prefix or the suffix or both. So actually we may leave it to G'yong-e to see what happens with the final S. And then the normalization part. Amongst Jaeyong-e languages, only Jaeyong, the Jaeyong language, preserves the oldest normalizing strategy. Normalization is used mainly in relative constructions. Jaeyong dialects use different prefixes to indicate the function. For instance, in Jaquk Jaeyong, G denotes the S or the A, G, the P, and Serp, the O of link. Additionally, a K-based prefix for infinitives. In Toptun Jaeyong, you have nearly the same prefixes. So in example 10, I'll list how these prefixes work in Toptun Jaeyong, with the verb n'zit to eat. G'n'zit means he who eats, and g'n'zit that is eaten, s'n'zit eating place, and g'n'zit to eat eating, something like that. So now let's have a look at the all-Chinese K-prefix. Bexter and Segar describe the K-prefix as deriving non-finite verbs that can be read as nouns. For instance, ui, ghost, it is probably common to wii, or inspiring, and ui, to fear, to threaten. And k'pun, square basket, it may, the original meaning might be something square, so it is related to fang, square, and maybe kru, the seized father, it is related to ru, to be old. So these K-prefixes seem to be some kind of S-A normalization, or the infinitive, in Jaeyong. Maybe they're cognates. So now 6.2, the oblique S. Oblique can mean several things. The surrounding environment, the instrument, the time, moment, the recipient, et cetera. We should look at some Ja'puk examples first to make it clearer. In example 12, fsit means to talk to, to talk, actually, and if you add an oblique S-prefix, you have ssit. It means the one to talk to, the recipient, and yi means to plant. If you've got ase yi, it means the time to plant, and yi means to come, ase yi means the place to come. So if you look at the old Chinese examples given back in Saigar 2014, you will find it amazing that this one's exactly the same. Nrak, to go against reverse, ssum nrak. First thing you can learn originally when the moon changes from waning to waxing, and chong to penetrate, ssum, a window where light penetrates, and maung to flee disappear, and ssum maung, morning, burial, and finally, l'e to take to use, ssul l'e, a handle of plough cycle, which originally meant instrument of holding. So the reconstruction is convincing both phonology-wise and morphology-wise, according to our gerundic languages. And now let's come to denormalization. There are a lot of denormal prefixes in gerundic languages with different degrees of productivity. They have different functions, as you can find in table 5 and table 6 with japug gerundic wabzi trusser. Our task now is to see if old Chinese had similar prefixes. First, 7.1, denormal capital N. I found three representative examples in old Chinese. In example 14, guat a long time, and guax to be all to be used, and guin to be even uniform, which probably is derived from an unattested base, guin, which probably meant cycle. And the third example, I like this one, guang to be yellow. And in 15 and 16, we have gerund examples with the N denormal prefix. I think N denominal is the most productive in gerundic languages, maybe. And 7.2, the denominal N. So this N prefix differs from the capital N prefix in that it has different reflexes in proto-mean and Vietnamese, et cetera. That is to say, a nasal, other than the capital N, must be reconstructed for those examples, but we don't know which. We could have opted for something like N1 and N2, but it might make us feel more comfortable with an actual bilabial. And the bilabial seems to be the most reasonable one since in gerundic phonology, the capital N and the bilabial N are distinct pre-initial morphemes, phonemes, sorry. In japug, an N denominal derives transitive verbs with body part or intransitive verbs of position. You can see the examples. In 17, merziap, mer shba, carrying shoulder and mer gu, to be happened before, and mer jel, to be in the middle. And according to a veteran cigar, der N denominal derives volitional verbs. As in 18, you can derive from the lay post to transcend it and poison duks to poison and price quote and price to cover or the price to cover oneself with. And bucks back. Well, here we've got a body part. And we've got some bucks to turn the back on. And maybe you can add caung and trao, something like a go-to morning audience at court, and maybe nitsmoks to gather, to bring together, which might be related to the bed and sort the plural marker. So these are the N prefix. But whether it is related to japug or to jaryong m is still doubtful. And then the denominal s. I've got one example here, but there may be many more. So this one is from the now position to arrange in order to order something like that. In 20, you have some examples of denominal s in wubzy cross steps. So just take a quick look. And now, what's about the n-fix r in old Chinese? They could also be denominal as in 21, you've got la to remove, something like that. Its cocklet could be found in japug with an r-based denominal prefix, deriving mainly intransitive verbs. But the old Chinese forms we found are mostly transitive to remove something, to store something. On the third one is intransitive. So are they related, I'm not sure. Unfortunately, I failed to find examples in troste. So now in section 8, I would like to talk something about the typology. In a language such as troste with long initial clusters, the constants are strictly aligned, we cannot change their positions. But this may not be the original look. The fact that they are so well aligned is because they must obey a certain sonority hierarchy as in 23 to facilitate the pronunciation. The most sonorous constants are placed in the outer slots and the least sonorous ones are placed in the inner slots. That is probably why they now show a 10th Latin morphology. So there is a correlation between phonology and morphology. In old Chinese, however, the members of an initial cluster are changeable position-wise. For instance, in 24, s and m and s and capital n can swap positions. So the positions are not predetermined. So it seems that all Chinese had a layer of morphology. The most clear example may be 25. The base verb was don't to ascend. And then the causative s is that it makes it to mean to increase. And then n prefix may be intransitivising and makes it to be double or to be in two storage. And next you may want to see the case of sian-covered design with an unknown base and n prefix which makes it stative and then an s to make it transitive. It seems that the epics as added are only sensitive to the outermost epics. So I think that layer type of morphology was what proto-scient Tibetan should look like since it is hard to imagine a language to be born templateic thing. In 8.2, I would like to talk about the tightly and loosely attached pre-syllables proposed by Betson Sogyal. The difference between them is that a loosely attached pre-syllable is a half-syllable with a schwa in between. So I've heard a lot of criticisms pointing about so I would like to introduce the cross-jab case. See examples in... So first let's see the examples in 26. Actually the tightly attached pre-syllables and loosely attached pre-syllables have different reflexes in middle Chinese so the opposition must be reconstructed. So this is already not to be criticised. And typologically from a general point of view it is also not weird. In cross-jabs we have traces of something that can be regarded as tightly and loosely attached pre-initials. Please look at 27 the causative forms of So the base verbs here to suck in the mouth and blue to step both have a pre-initial surfacing as M but they are intrinsically different. The causative prefix S is infixed between the nasal and the stop. And in 27a the nasal is fricativeised into an F sound and in 27b the nasal stays a nasal. I suppose that the nasal that becomes an F with the causative prefix be tightly attached if we follow Paik's turn and we learn that the one that stays nasal be loosely attached since it interacts less with the causative prefix therefore the most convenient way to reconstruct these two is also to posit a pre-syllable with the schwa. So there's nothing bizarre about this reconstruction. And I will quickly make one more comment on the famous pharyngealisation. So very quickly for type B syllables there are basically three approaches a medial yord, long vowels or only plain consonants opposed to pharyngealised type A syllables. There are not much direct evidence for this pharyngealisation. Backster Sagar have some indirect arguments for it. In 29, one of them is from the description of the native, the old Chinese. He said that one without pharyngealisation is outer and shallow and one with is inner and deep. Pharyngealised consonants are more difficult to pronounce. And another piece of evidence is that in some loan words the source had no medial yord for instance for Buddha borrowed indirectly from Sanskrit Buddha which had no medial between the consonant and the vowel so you can't really expect the old Chinese loan word had yord so the yord must be rather late. So if there is no yord for type B we have to get something done with type A that is probably pharyngealisation that prevented palatalisation. The contrast maybe observed might be observed in crossed up with certain rhymes but I'm not really sure. See table 7 with the R rhyme in crossed up. The examples with pharyngealisation in old Chinese have cognates in crossed up in R while those without pharyngealisation have cognates in crossed up in E. The phenomenon is genetically related or or just a parallel non related phenomenon. I didn't have enough time to study carefully but one day in my life before I die I'll forgive him. In 30 I would like to propose another indirect evidence for it. We all know that in old Chinese there was a functional work for in modern Mandarin which was something like a compromise at the beginning of the sentence. This word is a type B word. So if we follow back to 1992 we have something like biang in old Chinese but isn't it weird to have biang at the beginning of the sentence to introduce this clause. If we look at French we have something similar because we always say bah-bang in French. So in French the etymology was biang. It's clear meaning English well something like that originally with a yacht in between and it became something without yacht so it is difficult to imagine that old Chinese fool was originally biang. Therefore a bah reconstruction sounds more natural if you insist that naturalness is vital for reconstruction. So to some extent the current reconstruction is actually more natural and on the last page I have got some potential conflicts between Chinese and Chinese languages. These are for you to criticise.