Northern Wu, orTaihu Wu, is the largest subbranch ofWuChinese,^[1] and is spoken inShanghai, southernJiangsu, and northernZhejiang.^[2] These languages are noted for their extremely high number ofvowels, even compared to someGermanic languages,^[3] and highly complextone sandhi.^[4] This article will useWugniu^[5] andIPA for transcription.

Much like other Sinitic languages, Northern Wu languages almost universally have an initial-final-tonesyllable structure. The final can be further split into theglide,nucleus andcoda. For the most part, contemporary Northern Wu languages only permit nasals and the glottal stop (/ʔ/) in coda position,^[6] though there is evidence to suggest that this was not the case in some historical varieties.^[7] There are plentifulinitials in Northern Wu,^[8] more than many other Sinitic languages such asCantonese orChangshanese, partially due to the preservation of voiced initials, which will be explained in more detail in other sections.

Much like other Wu languages, Northern Wu languages tend to preserve historical voiced initials,^[9] which is a feature only found in several other lects along theYangtze River, such asOld Xiang.^[10]

Northern Wu languages' initials are generally similar. The following is a table of all the commonly-found Northern Wu phonemic initials, with their common urban realizations, Wugniu romanization, and example syllables.^{[5][11][12][13][14][15]}

Some varieties inSuzhou andJiaxing haveretroflex initials,^[16][17] much like someMandarin varieties. Compare the following examples.^[5]

Northern Wu, much like other Wu varieties, preservesvoicing in its initials.^[9] The exact mechanism in which this is realized is discussed below.

Again, much like other Wu languages,^[2] Northern Wu preserves the Middle Chineseri initial (日母) as a nasal. Compare the following, where ⟨gn⟩ is used to notate /ɲ/:^[5]

Note that日 here is pronounced in thecolloquial pronunciations rather than literary ones.

Many Northern Wu varieties havesibilants that undergopalatalization (尖團合流 [zh]).^[18] This process is becoming more common among younger speakers.^[16][19]

The voiced initials in Northern Wu languages are realised withbreathy voice.^[20] This functions much like a phonemic depressor and lowers the pitch of the realization.^[6] Some linguists, such asY. R. Chao, transcribe these phones not as voiced consonants, but as voiceless consonants followed by /ɦ/ or /ʢ/.^[8][21] More recently, potentially due toStandard Mandarin influence, the younger generation has merged the pronunciation of the unaspirated voiceless series with the (breathy) voiced series.^[22] However, the functional load of the breathy voice is already relatively low, due to the fact that tonal distribution lends to disambiguation between historically voiced and voiceless syllables. This breathy voice is at times known as "murmur".^[23][24]

Some speakers, particularly inShanghai, may constrict their throats when pronouncing voiceless (unaspirated) initials to further disambiguate breathy andmodal initials.^[25] This construction may result in the pronunciation of animplosive.

In various suburbanShanghainese varieties, the unaspirated voiceless series is realised asimplosives.^{[26][27][28][29]} This feature appears to also have been in urban (Puxi) Shanghainese, though it is lost today.^[30]

The glottal fricatives /h/ and /ɦ/ are phonotactically part of a plosive series with /ʔ/. Spectral analyses have found that these three phones show three-way differences parallel to stops.^[31] Younger speakers also tend to merge/ɦ/ with/ʔ/, not/h/, as would be expected if it were phonotatically a fricative.^[32] As the/ʔ/ has been analyzed as a null initial in the past,^[33] it could be said that Northern Wu languages have a three-way null initial contrast.

Finals vary significantly more than initials in Northern Wu languages. As such, only noteworthy phonological and diachronic features will be discussed. For detailed analyses of individual lects, refer to their specific pages.

A feature found in many Wu languages, including Northern Wu, is the raising of the historicalma (麻) rimes.^[34] They are typically realised as /o/, though some lects such asShanghainese orWuxinese may raise it even higher and having it merge with /u/.^[35] The exact sets of words that undergo raising varies from lect to lect, though in general, the southern two branches (Linshao and Yongjiang) have more raising than northern ones.^[5][36]

Notice how the two localities in Zhejiang, Tonglu and Ningbo, both pronounce the word家 with a raised vowel, whereas those in Jiangsu and Shanghai do not. Northern varieties tend to retain the /a/ value after velars, whereas Linshao and Yongjiang do not.^[37]

Northern Wu lects along theGrand Canal tend to front the Qieyun Middle Chinese侯 rime (ie. Wugniu eu).^[38]Y. R. Chao suggested that this is due to influence fromHangzhounese.^[39] Chao raises the example of歐洲後頭的狗 "the dog behind Europe", pronounced as [sic][eitseiɦeideikə'kei], taken from his nativeChangzhounese. Compare Standard MandarinŌuzhōu hòutóu de gǒu.^[39]

The Northern Wu languages exhibit interesting behaviour regarding Qieyun Middle Chineseshan (山) andxian (咸) rimes (ie. Wugniu ae). Some varieties lose the nasal coda completely, whereas others retain it. Some also leave some sporadic nasalization.^[40] They typically also have abnormally raised, rounded, or fronted vowels and more complex distribution when compared to other lects, thus resulting in noticeable differences. This behaviour is also exhibited inHangzhounese.^[41]

Several Northern Wu varieties have a very large number of contrastive high vowels.^[43][44] This contrast is typically realised in the form ofrounding or frication.^[43][45][46] This frication can be notated as a lowering or raising of the vowel or as a glide insertion. Typically, frication in non-apical vowels happens to contrast terms with historical nasal codas.^[5][47]

Codas in Northern Wu are relatively simple compared to other Sinitic languages. In most modern Northern Wu varieties, only a single nasal phoneme and a checked coda (typically transcribed/ʔ/) are permitted in coda position.

Northern Wu languages typically only have one final nasal phoneme.^{[2][5][18][48]} This is typically realised as[n],[ŋ],[ȵ] or anasalization of the nucleus vowel, typically infree variation.^[49]

Aside from nasals, Northern Wu languages typically only permit/ʔ/ in coda position,^[50] though some modern varieties and historical texts still preserve/k/.^[7][51] This is different to other coastal Southern Chinese languages, as they typically do not merge all checked codas into one category.^[2] It is also noteworthy that the coda is often realised as a shortening of the vowel rather than an actual[ʔ],^[52][53] which contrasts withOujiang varieties, which typically lengthen checked syllables.^[54] Compare the following syllables.^[5]

Tone plays a critical role in Northern Wu and impacts the realisation of both initials and finals.^[8][56][57] It disambiguates between both monosyllabic words via underlying tone^[58] and polysyllabic terms through the use of tone sandhi.^[59] Northern Wu languages can theoretically have up to twelvephonemic tones, depending on analysis. These lects can be found in places inSuzhou andJiaxing, such asWujiang.^[60][61]

Phonemic tones in Northern Wu is traditionally analysed based onfour historical tone categories, which are further divided in half based on thevoicing of the initial. Those that pair with voiceless initials are known as "dark" (陰) tones and the opposite is true for "light" (陽) ones. This yields a total of eight tones. The hypothetical maximum of 12 tones are achieved whenaspiration conditions a further tone split through the dark tones.

Note that, unlikeYue languages, the dark checked tone split is conditioned by aspiration, notvowel length.^[62]

Although there are Northern Wu lects with a high number of tones, it is also noteworthy that contemporaryShanghainese in particular only has at most five phonemic tones, by merging tones 2 and 4 with 6, and tones 3 with 5.^[18][63] A typical Northern Wu variety has 7–8 tones.^{[64][65][66][24]}

For the most part, light tones can only occur with voiced initials, and dark tones can only occur with voiceless initials. In general, the light counterpart of a dark tone tends to be a lowered (or depressed) equivalent of the dark tone, as explored above.^[6] Compare the pronunciations of the dark and light departing tones in the following Wu varieties:^[5][18][67]

Neutral tones (Chinese:輕聲), informally transcribed as 0 or not transcribed at all, are found in tone sandhi and in some grammatical particles. For instance, the perfective particle了,leq in Shanghainese should be tone 8 due to its voiced and checked nature, though it in reality functions without a tone.^[33] This phenomenon can also be observed inStandard Mandarin, though it is more pronounced in Northern Wu due to the grammatical nature of Northern Wu sandhi.

Northern Wu languages all havetone sandhi, both left-prominent (hereafter LPS) and often right-prominent (RPS).^[68][a] LPS is typically found in polysyllabic words, whereas RPS is typically found in verb-object constructions. This is a feature that is shared among Wu languages, though in Northern Wu, sandhi chains generally share similar contours.^[69] This, coupled with the fact that this sort of complex tone sandhi cannot be found in theQieyun system or reconstructions ofMiddle Chinese, would suggest that this sandhi is a Wu shared innovation, and that Northern Wu languages share a recent common origin.^[69]

There are five general types of contours:^[68]

• Contour spreading, where the contour of the head syllable gets stretched over subsequent syllables
• Default realization, where the subsequent syllables become null tones
• Contour leveling, where a syllable removes its tone contour movement such that it becomes level
• Citation target, where a tone on a syllable in a sandhi chain varies compared to its monosyllabic/citation form because it is affected by other conditioning factors such as stress. For example, stress can cause an apparent tone contour to start and end higher compared to its underlying form. Stress can also neutralize the dipping portion of such a bidirectional tone, becoming a simple rising contour (if the underlying tone is low-dip-high ˨˩˦).
• Categorical shift, where the subsequent syllables change tone categories

LPS in Northern Wu is typically regarded as highly complex. Northern Wu varieties are traditionally analysed to have unique sandhi chains for each tone category of every syllable, which results in complex charts that sprawl several pages.^[70] However, these analyses can usually be simplified, and not all combinations yield unique sandhi chains. Shanghainese LPS, for instance, has traditionally been analysed to only preserve phonemic tone on the first or head syllable, and drop it on all subsequent syllables,^[18][71] which may thus be considered somewhat similar topitch accent in some languages. However, some younger speakers insert a rising tone contour on traditionally voiced initials to perhaps mimic the depression effect.

This is similar to some analyses ofSuzhounese andHangzhounese. Checked tones in Suzhounese can be analysed to preserve the underlying tone of the first two syllables,^[72][b] whereas Hangzhounese sandhi is conditioned based on whether the second syllable belongs to the rising or non-rising category.^[73]

The tone category of the third and fourth syllables do not matter.^[72]

RPS primarily occurs on verbs in verb-object constructions,^[74] and often is only relevant to monosyllables. They also occur in certain situations such as quantitative adjectives and a handful of irregular words. This can be used to disambiguate between certain constructions, such as the famous炒麪 example,^[75] but also the following:^[59]

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