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Phonetic Explanation for Initial and Tonal Evolution in Wu Dialects of Chinese

This study tries to explore phonetic mechanism of the evolution both for initials and tones taken place in Wu Dialects of Chinese, so that to find out why the developments of the two aspects are always tangled one another. The preliminary perspectives drawn here are based on a brief survey to some relevant investigations. Both acoustic and physiological evidences gathered so far lead to a suggestion that the evolution either of initials and tones might be originated from the same source, i.e., they are all motivated by phonation type distinction existed around the boundary between initial consonant and following vowel of a syllable, and the contrasts of voiced vs. voiceless initials and Yin vs. Yang tones were both originated by such particular characteristics, which seems exist already at latest in the mid stage of Middle Chinese.