The sounds shown in parentheses are sometimes not analyzed as separate
phonemes; for more on these, see below. Excluding these, and excluding the
glides , , and , there are 19 consonant phonemes in the inventory. Between pairs of
plosives or
affricates having the same
place of articulation and
manner of articulation, the primary distinction is not
voiced vs. voiceless (as in
French or
Russian), but unaspirated vs.
aspirated (as in
Scottish Gaelic or
Icelandic). The unaspirated plosives and affricates may however become voiced in weak syllables (see below). In pinyin, an unaspirated/aspirated pair such as and is represented with
b and
p respectively. More details about the individual consonant sounds are given in the following table. All of the consonants may occur as the
initial sound of a syllable, with the exception of (unless the zero initial is assigned to this phoneme; see
below). Excepting the
rhotic coda, the only consonants that can appear in
syllable coda (final) position are and (although
may occur as an allophone of before labial consonants in fast speech). Final , may be pronounced without complete oral closure, resulting in a syllable that in fact ends with a long
nasalized vowel. See also , below.
Denti-alveolar and retroflex series The consonants listed in the first table above as
denti-alveolar are sometimes described as
alveolars, and sometimes as
dentals. The affricates and the fricative are particularly often described as dentals; these are generally pronounced with the tongue on the lower teeth. The
retroflex consonants (like those of
Polish) are actually
apical rather than
subapical, and so are considered by some authors not to be truly retroflex; they may be more accurately called post-alveolar. Some speakers not from Beijing may lack the retroflexes in their native dialects, and may thus replace them with dentals.
Alveolo-palatal series The alveolo-palatal consonants (pinyin
j,
q,
x) have standard pronunciations of . Some speakers realize them as
palatalized dentals , , ; this is claimed to be especially common among children and women, although officially it is regarded as substandard and as a feature specific to the Beijing dialect. In phonological analysis, it is often assumed that, when not followed by one of the high front vowels or , the alveolar-palatals consist of a consonant followed by a palatal glide ( or ). That is, syllables represented in pinyin as beginning , , , , , (followed by a vowel) are taken to begin , , , , , . The actual pronunciations are more like , , , , , (or for speakers using the dental variants, , , , , , ). This is consistent with the general observation (see under ) that medial glides are realized as palatalization and/or labialization of the preceding consonant (palatalization already being inherent in the case of the palatals). On the above analysis, the alveolar-palatals are in
complementary distribution with the dentals , with the
velars , and with the
retroflexes , as none of these can occur before high front vowels or palatal glides, whereas the alveolo-palatals occur before high front vowels or palatal glides. Therefore, linguists often prefer to classify not as independent phonemes, but as
allophones of one of the other three series. The existence of the above-mentioned dental variants inclines some to prefer to identify the alveolo-palatals with the dentals, but identification with any of the three series is possible (unless the
empty rime is identified with , in which case the velars become the only candidate). The
Yale and
Wade–Giles systems mostly treat the alveolo-palatals as allophones of the retroflexes;
Tongyong Pinyin mostly treats them as allophones of the dentals; and
Mainland Chinese Braille treats them as allophones of the velars. In pinyin and
bopomofo, however, they are represented as a separate sequence. The alveolo-palatals arose historically from a merger of the dentals and velars before high front vowels and glides. Previously, some instances of modern were instead , and others were ; distinguishing these two sources of is known as the . The change took place in the last two or three centuries at different times in different areas. This explains why some European transcriptions of Chinese names (especially in
postal romanization) contain , , , where an alveolo-palatal might be expected in modern Chinese. Examples are
Peking for
Beijing (),
Chungking for
Chongqing (),
Fukien for
Fujian (cf.
Hokkien),
Tientsin for
Tianjin ();
Sinkiang for
Xinjiang (, and
Sian for
Xi'an (). The complementary distribution with the retroflex series arose when syllables that had a retroflex consonant followed by a medial glide lost the medial glide.
Zero onset A full syllable such as
ai, in which the vowel is not preceded by any of the standard initial consonants or glides, is said to have a
null initial or
zero onset. This may be realized as a consonant sound: and are possibilities, as are and in some non-standard varieties. It has been suggested by San Duanmu that such an onset be regarded as a special phoneme, or as an instance of the phoneme , although it can also be treated as no phoneme (absence of onset). By contrast, in the case of the particle
a, which is a
weak onset-less syllable, linking occurs with the previous syllable (as described under , below). When a stressed vowel-initial Chinese syllable follows a consonant-final syllable, the consonant does not directly link with the vowel. Instead, the zero onset seems to intervene in between. ("cotton jacket") becomes , . However, in
connected speech none of these output forms is natural. Instead, when the words are spoken together the most natural pronunciation is rather similar to , in which there is no nasal closure or any version of the zero onset, and instead
nasalization of the vowel occurs. ==Glides==