Nasals and Nasalization in Xiangxiang Chinese

【摘要】：We examine in the present study the aerodynamic characteristics of vowel nasalization in Xiangxiang Chinese,a representative of the Old Xiang Dialects of Chinese,which has a rich set of nasals,nasalized and nasal vowels,and discuss the implications of the emerging results and those from studies on vowel nasalization in other languages for the theories of sound change,i.e.the historical development of distinctive vowel nasalization.