Although many details are still disputed, recent formulations are in substantial agreement on the core issues.
| Labial | Dental | Palatal | Velar | Laryngeal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | sibilant | plain | labialized | plain | labialized | ||||
| Stop or affricate |
voiceless | *p | *t | *ts | *k | *kʷ | *ʔ | *ʔʷ | |
| aspirate | *pʰ | *tʰ | *tsʰ | *kʰ | *kʷʰ | ||||
| voiced | *b | *d | *dz | *ɡ | *ɡʷ | ||||
| Nasal | voiceless | *m̥ | *n̥ | *ŋ̊ | *ŋ̊ʷ | ||||
| voiced | *m | *n | *ŋ | *ŋʷ | |||||
| Lateral | voiceless | *l̥ | |||||||
| voiced | *l | ||||||||
| Fricative or approximant |
voiceless | (*r̥) | *s | (*j̊) | *h | *hʷ | |||
| voiced | *r | (*z) | (*j) | (*ɦ) | (*w) | ||||
Most scholars reconstruct clusters of *s- with other consonants, and possibly other clusters as well, but this area remains unsettled.
In recent reconstructions, the rest of the Old Chinese syllable consists of
- an optional medial *-r-,
- an optional medial *-j- or (in some reconstructions) some other representation of a distinction between "type-A" and "type-B" syllables,
- one of six vowels:
| *i | *ə | *u |
| *e | *a | *o |
- an optional coda, which could be a glide *-j or *-w, a nasal *-m, *-n or *-ŋ, or a stop *-p, *-t, *-k or *-kʷ,
- an optional post-coda *-ʔ or *-s.
In such systems, Old Chinese has no tones; the rising and departing tones of Middle Chinese are treated as reflexes of the Old Chinese post-codas.