James --
I had no way of knowing you were a linguist. Also, I now realize that I misread your question (in asking for dialects of Cantonese, as opposed to Chinese.). Instead of jumping on my back, maybe you could let it slide? Anyways.
Tone Sandhi
Re: Tone Sandhi
Tone Sandhi:
Quoting from "Cantonese - A Comprehensive Grammar" (Matthews/Yip):
". . . In Cantonese, tone change is restricted to one main process which is not regular in this sense, but occurs due to a number of morphological and semantic factors. For these reasons, the Cantonese case is generally referred to as tone change rather than tone sandhi. The functions of this tone change are highly complex."
This is followed by a four page quick overview of the most important cases. (Don't ask me to type that in for you, please.)
There is all sort of such tone changes in Cantonese. The most frequent is in my experience the change from tones 4 (low falling) or 6 (low flat) to tone 2 (high rising), but there are all sorts of other types. Most important: there are no easy rules to apply. Learners of Cantonese usually learn the word combinations rather than any rule.
Mr.Zhang is Zoeng1 Sin1 Saang1. In general, the tone number one can be either high flat or high falling, depending on the word. In Hongkong today, this difference has all but disappeared. It is always pronounced high flat. This has nothing to do with tone sandhi, i.e. the same word does not change from high flat to high falling depending on the sentence. Instead, there is a shift in popular speech patterns such that the high falling tone is not used anymore. Words that had been pronounced with high falling tone before are nowadays generally pronounced high flat (with few exceptions). Many text books still quote high level and high falling. However, they often do not agree on when to use high falling and when to use high flat. I found 4 different results in 5 text books for Zoeng1 Sin1 Saang1.
Quoting from "Cantonese - A Comprehensive Grammar" (Matthews/Yip):
". . . In Cantonese, tone change is restricted to one main process which is not regular in this sense, but occurs due to a number of morphological and semantic factors. For these reasons, the Cantonese case is generally referred to as tone change rather than tone sandhi. The functions of this tone change are highly complex."
This is followed by a four page quick overview of the most important cases. (Don't ask me to type that in for you, please.)
There is all sort of such tone changes in Cantonese. The most frequent is in my experience the change from tones 4 (low falling) or 6 (low flat) to tone 2 (high rising), but there are all sorts of other types. Most important: there are no easy rules to apply. Learners of Cantonese usually learn the word combinations rather than any rule.
Mr.Zhang is Zoeng1 Sin1 Saang1. In general, the tone number one can be either high flat or high falling, depending on the word. In Hongkong today, this difference has all but disappeared. It is always pronounced high flat. This has nothing to do with tone sandhi, i.e. the same word does not change from high flat to high falling depending on the sentence. Instead, there is a shift in popular speech patterns such that the high falling tone is not used anymore. Words that had been pronounced with high falling tone before are nowadays generally pronounced high flat (with few exceptions). Many text books still quote high level and high falling. However, they often do not agree on when to use high falling and when to use high flat. I found 4 different results in 5 text books for Zoeng1 Sin1 Saang1.
Re: Tone Sandhi
As for Xiansheng (for why I'm saying it, tone isn't extremely important), seeing the Cantonese equavalent (Sinsaang) made me think-- that's like Japanese in that in Japanese you say Sensei.
About the Matthews/Yip book: I actually had that checked out from my local library recently, I might actually still have it. However I haven't yet looked at it much. If you want, when I get my computer-with-scanner working, I might OCR (is that a verb? couldn't OCR also stand for optical-characterally recognise or something like that? lol) the 4 pages of which you are talking for the benefit of James (if he can't find it) and those others who don't have access to the book.
About the Matthews/Yip book: I actually had that checked out from my local library recently, I might actually still have it. However I haven't yet looked at it much. If you want, when I get my computer-with-scanner working, I might OCR (is that a verb? couldn't OCR also stand for optical-characterally recognise or something like that? lol) the 4 pages of which you are talking for the benefit of James (if he can't find it) and those others who don't have access to the book.
-
James Campbell
Re: Tone Sandhi
Thanks for everybody's input.
There was a good book written about morphophonology specifically in Korean, I think the author was Samuel Martin. Very detailed and good read but getting to be dated.
Thank you Helmut for your info. Those books are readily available, but I never took a close look at their contents. I think there are two books now: a beginner's and intermediate one (pink cover?). Do you know which one it is mentioned in and the page numbers? Sounds like you've got the book with you, if you don't mind letting me know. In fact, mentioning tone change in contrast to tone sandhi as being a separate phenomenon really interests me. In some languages and dialects (I think Mike has already mentioned this) some tones undergo sandhi into contours that are not shared by another tone, so one cannot say this tone becomes that tone, instead a whole new tone is created. Much of Shanghaiese is this way.
But I'm sure what happens in Wu would be completely different than what you are describing for Yue dialects. I wonder if the various kinds of tone sandhi themselves can be differentiated into categories. The tone sandhi in some dialects like Ningbo Wu are quite extreme (perhaps more than a hundred different combinations?), but it goes to an even more extreme in examples like in the dialects of Jin, notably Pingyao (central Shanxi province). Taiyuan Jin also has this but not to the same degree. There are perhaps hundreds of different tone contour combinations in these Jin dialects.
In other cases, like standard S. Min (Xiamen), I would consider in the same class as that of Mandarin. I like to think of these languages as having an accent as well (it's not real accent but some kind of strong accent-like attribute that syllables can have). Maybe I use accent for a lack of a better term. In these languages, preceding vowels have a weak accent and therefore undergo sandhi, and the final vowel has a strong accent and is not affected. In Wu, I think of the accent falling on the first syllable as this is what affects the tone sandhi of the whole phrase even though the first syllable undergoes tone sandhi as well. But there is also some kind of real accent that is revealed over the length of several syllables (rising-falling), especially in 3, 4 and 5 syllable phrases.
Helmut states that there are no easy rules to apply, which means that there must be rules: they're just complex! I thought the same about Shanghaiese, just as many other Shanghaiese speakers feel (they state that there are no tones!), until I saw a chart, which just confused me even more. But after learning how to speak the language more and reading up as much as I could about it, I learned that there really were patterns that I could follow and I could finally decipher the charts. This improved my ability to be understood more. And in Shanghaiese, I don't really feel it's the tones that are important, but the voicings of consonants that are important (vd/unv). Once I understood that, all the tones fell into place. So it's learning how to look at it from a completely different perspective--and it was much easier to explain.
The Pingyao tone sandhi charts definitely are an intimidating sight. But I'm sure there's a hidden key beneath it all--or else how would anybody be able to speak it naturally?
Now back to Cantonese. If this is really a case of haphazard tone change rather than tone sandhi, my belief is that it may be something that we already know about in another dialect somewhere; some kind of special tone sandhi case like I just mentioned. Otherwise let's get a study done on it and figure out where these tones are going.
And it seems that Cantonese has been undergoing a period of big change during the last few decades. A lot of sound shifts happening and even tone shifts. I never realized that tones 4 and 6 could change to 2nd tone--it feels quite unnatural to me. I never even saw this mentioned in any book either.
I just remembered: I recently bought 第七屆國際粵方言研討會論文集 which has 500 pages of in-depth Yue research (published 2000.12), so I'll search through it for any mention of tone research. Yes, I just found that page 172 has an article by 林建平 titled 香港粵語陰平調值商榷, so I'll read through it and get back to you. But I can't find anything else in this book about Cantonese tones or tone changes like what Helmut was mentioning.
.
.
.
Ichi: sorry for getting on your back. I was just trying to start a more intelligent linguistic discussion, and then you come and state the obvious and even some obviously incorrect information ("3rd followed by 4th"--at least I never caught myself speaking that way), so what do you expect me to say? "Tone sandhi is documented in Mandarin; I believe a textbook..." that's just asking for it. But I'll drop it, ok?
.
.
.
James Campbell
There was a good book written about morphophonology specifically in Korean, I think the author was Samuel Martin. Very detailed and good read but getting to be dated.
Thank you Helmut for your info. Those books are readily available, but I never took a close look at their contents. I think there are two books now: a beginner's and intermediate one (pink cover?). Do you know which one it is mentioned in and the page numbers? Sounds like you've got the book with you, if you don't mind letting me know. In fact, mentioning tone change in contrast to tone sandhi as being a separate phenomenon really interests me. In some languages and dialects (I think Mike has already mentioned this) some tones undergo sandhi into contours that are not shared by another tone, so one cannot say this tone becomes that tone, instead a whole new tone is created. Much of Shanghaiese is this way.
But I'm sure what happens in Wu would be completely different than what you are describing for Yue dialects. I wonder if the various kinds of tone sandhi themselves can be differentiated into categories. The tone sandhi in some dialects like Ningbo Wu are quite extreme (perhaps more than a hundred different combinations?), but it goes to an even more extreme in examples like in the dialects of Jin, notably Pingyao (central Shanxi province). Taiyuan Jin also has this but not to the same degree. There are perhaps hundreds of different tone contour combinations in these Jin dialects.
In other cases, like standard S. Min (Xiamen), I would consider in the same class as that of Mandarin. I like to think of these languages as having an accent as well (it's not real accent but some kind of strong accent-like attribute that syllables can have). Maybe I use accent for a lack of a better term. In these languages, preceding vowels have a weak accent and therefore undergo sandhi, and the final vowel has a strong accent and is not affected. In Wu, I think of the accent falling on the first syllable as this is what affects the tone sandhi of the whole phrase even though the first syllable undergoes tone sandhi as well. But there is also some kind of real accent that is revealed over the length of several syllables (rising-falling), especially in 3, 4 and 5 syllable phrases.
Helmut states that there are no easy rules to apply, which means that there must be rules: they're just complex! I thought the same about Shanghaiese, just as many other Shanghaiese speakers feel (they state that there are no tones!), until I saw a chart, which just confused me even more. But after learning how to speak the language more and reading up as much as I could about it, I learned that there really were patterns that I could follow and I could finally decipher the charts. This improved my ability to be understood more. And in Shanghaiese, I don't really feel it's the tones that are important, but the voicings of consonants that are important (vd/unv). Once I understood that, all the tones fell into place. So it's learning how to look at it from a completely different perspective--and it was much easier to explain.
The Pingyao tone sandhi charts definitely are an intimidating sight. But I'm sure there's a hidden key beneath it all--or else how would anybody be able to speak it naturally?
Now back to Cantonese. If this is really a case of haphazard tone change rather than tone sandhi, my belief is that it may be something that we already know about in another dialect somewhere; some kind of special tone sandhi case like I just mentioned. Otherwise let's get a study done on it and figure out where these tones are going.
And it seems that Cantonese has been undergoing a period of big change during the last few decades. A lot of sound shifts happening and even tone shifts. I never realized that tones 4 and 6 could change to 2nd tone--it feels quite unnatural to me. I never even saw this mentioned in any book either.
I just remembered: I recently bought 第七屆國際粵方言研討會論文集 which has 500 pages of in-depth Yue research (published 2000.12), so I'll search through it for any mention of tone research. Yes, I just found that page 172 has an article by 林建平 titled 香港粵語陰平調值商榷, so I'll read through it and get back to you. But I can't find anything else in this book about Cantonese tones or tone changes like what Helmut was mentioning.
.
.
.
Ichi: sorry for getting on your back. I was just trying to start a more intelligent linguistic discussion, and then you come and state the obvious and even some obviously incorrect information ("3rd followed by 4th"--at least I never caught myself speaking that way), so what do you expect me to say? "Tone sandhi is documented in Mandarin; I believe a textbook..." that's just asking for it. But I'll drop it, ok?
.
.
.
James Campbell
-
Thomas Chan
Re: Tone Sandhi
James Campbell wrote:
>
> Thank you Helmut for your info. Those books are readily
> available, but I never took a close look at their contents. I
> think there are two books now: a beginner's and intermediate
> one (pink cover?). Do you know which one it is mentioned in
> and the page numbers? Sounds like you've got the book with
> you, if you don't mind letting me know. In fact, mentioning
It sounds like section 1.4.2 "Tone change" in Stephen Matthews
and Virginia Yip's _Cantonese: A Comprehensive Grammar_
(New York: Routledge, 1994). The "Basic" and "Intermediate"
ones are textbooks rather than grammars, I believe.
However, phonetic and phonological information is scant in such
a work. You can find a lot more in sections 2.5 "Tone change"
and 2.8.1 "Tone sandhi" of [Anne] Oi-kan Yue[-]Hashimoto's
_Studies in Yue Dialects 1: Phonology of Cantonese_ (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Presss, 1972) and the appropriate sections
of Robert S. Bauer and Paul K. Benedict's _Modern Cantonese
Phonology_ (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997).
Yue (1972: 112) only gives the following for sandhi:
53 -> 55 / __ 53/55/5
21 -> 22 / __ 21/22
(i.e., the 53 variant of yinping becomes the 55 variant when
preceded by 53, 55, or 5 yinru; 21 yangping becomes 22 yangqu
when preceded by 21 or 22--I know you can read the notation,
but I just wanted to apply the traditional names to the tone
contours)
Yue goes on to explain (the section is only two pages total)
that it can be chained, e.g., 21 21 21 21 -> 22 22 22 21; that
the 21 -> 22 change is seldom discussed compared to the
other change because it "...is seldom noticed partly because
the pitch level of that tone is so low that that the distinction
between a level and a falling variety often escapes the ear,
and partly because many speakers probably do not pronounce
the tone normally with a falling contour..." (113), etc. I'm sure
there's more information in the Bauer and Benedict book, but I
don't own a copy to quote from at the moment. (Yue, on the
other hand, is out-of-print and the print run was low--it was
expensive to produce--let me know if you need more information,
examples from the text, footnotes, etc.)
I believe with your "Mr. Zhang' question, you were looking to the
answer that is the first of Yue's rules, but without an actual
analysis, I believe I only use the 55 form of the yinping tone, so
I'd say 55 55 55, or each syllable separately as 55, 55, 55. I seem
to recall the Bauer and Benedict book described the the 55 and 53
forms of yinping as the different contours that HK and Guangzhou
have taken on for that tone.
> Helmut states that there are no easy rules to apply, which
> means that there must be rules: they're just complex! I
> thought the same about Shanghaiese, just as many other
The rules for the sandhi (see Yue above) motivated by ease of
pronunciation are easy, as the rules for tone change can be
described, but when to apply the latter has to be learned lexically,
although it can be generalized. e.g., for many, the changed tone
conveys familiarity or diminutiveness, and some can be optionally
changed by speakers such as jung55man21 vs. jung55man21-35
'Chinese language' while others are obligatory because the changed
form has a different meaning like tong21 'sugar' vs. tong21-35
'candy'. The entire process is about as predictable as the application
of the neutral tone of Mandarin (but if you've figured out any rules
to make the latter easier, I'd like to know!). Yue's section is about eight pages in length.
> And it seems that Cantonese has been undergoing a period of
> big change during the last few decades. A lot of sound shifts
> happening and even tone shifts. I never realized that tones 4
> and 6 could change to 2nd tone--it feels quite unnatural to
> me. I never even saw this mentioned in any book either.
It feels pretty natural to me.
BTW, the citation form of my
surname is chan21 (Mandarin chen2), but for familiarity when
prefixed by "Ah", you get the form a33 chan21-35.
I believe this has been going on for a long time, but I do recall
seeing some articles on how items have gained or lost changed
tones over time.
Books not mentioning it might be the result of listing the changed
tone alone and not mentioning the base tone (in some cases,
the changed tone has overwhelmed the base tone and speakers no
longer always know what the base tone originally was, particularly
in the colloquial strata where reference to rhymebooks and other
dialects cannot always be made).
Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
>
> Thank you Helmut for your info. Those books are readily
> available, but I never took a close look at their contents. I
> think there are two books now: a beginner's and intermediate
> one (pink cover?). Do you know which one it is mentioned in
> and the page numbers? Sounds like you've got the book with
> you, if you don't mind letting me know. In fact, mentioning
It sounds like section 1.4.2 "Tone change" in Stephen Matthews
and Virginia Yip's _Cantonese: A Comprehensive Grammar_
(New York: Routledge, 1994). The "Basic" and "Intermediate"
ones are textbooks rather than grammars, I believe.
However, phonetic and phonological information is scant in such
a work. You can find a lot more in sections 2.5 "Tone change"
and 2.8.1 "Tone sandhi" of [Anne] Oi-kan Yue[-]Hashimoto's
_Studies in Yue Dialects 1: Phonology of Cantonese_ (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Presss, 1972) and the appropriate sections
of Robert S. Bauer and Paul K. Benedict's _Modern Cantonese
Phonology_ (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997).
Yue (1972: 112) only gives the following for sandhi:
53 -> 55 / __ 53/55/5
21 -> 22 / __ 21/22
(i.e., the 53 variant of yinping becomes the 55 variant when
preceded by 53, 55, or 5 yinru; 21 yangping becomes 22 yangqu
when preceded by 21 or 22--I know you can read the notation,
but I just wanted to apply the traditional names to the tone
contours)
Yue goes on to explain (the section is only two pages total)
that it can be chained, e.g., 21 21 21 21 -> 22 22 22 21; that
the 21 -> 22 change is seldom discussed compared to the
other change because it "...is seldom noticed partly because
the pitch level of that tone is so low that that the distinction
between a level and a falling variety often escapes the ear,
and partly because many speakers probably do not pronounce
the tone normally with a falling contour..." (113), etc. I'm sure
there's more information in the Bauer and Benedict book, but I
don't own a copy to quote from at the moment. (Yue, on the
other hand, is out-of-print and the print run was low--it was
expensive to produce--let me know if you need more information,
examples from the text, footnotes, etc.)
I believe with your "Mr. Zhang' question, you were looking to the
answer that is the first of Yue's rules, but without an actual
analysis, I believe I only use the 55 form of the yinping tone, so
I'd say 55 55 55, or each syllable separately as 55, 55, 55. I seem
to recall the Bauer and Benedict book described the the 55 and 53
forms of yinping as the different contours that HK and Guangzhou
have taken on for that tone.
> Helmut states that there are no easy rules to apply, which
> means that there must be rules: they're just complex! I
> thought the same about Shanghaiese, just as many other
The rules for the sandhi (see Yue above) motivated by ease of
pronunciation are easy, as the rules for tone change can be
described, but when to apply the latter has to be learned lexically,
although it can be generalized. e.g., for many, the changed tone
conveys familiarity or diminutiveness, and some can be optionally
changed by speakers such as jung55man21 vs. jung55man21-35
'Chinese language' while others are obligatory because the changed
form has a different meaning like tong21 'sugar' vs. tong21-35
'candy'. The entire process is about as predictable as the application
of the neutral tone of Mandarin (but if you've figured out any rules
to make the latter easier, I'd like to know!). Yue's section is about eight pages in length.
> And it seems that Cantonese has been undergoing a period of
> big change during the last few decades. A lot of sound shifts
> happening and even tone shifts. I never realized that tones 4
> and 6 could change to 2nd tone--it feels quite unnatural to
> me. I never even saw this mentioned in any book either.
It feels pretty natural to me.
BTW, the citation form of mysurname is chan21 (Mandarin chen2), but for familiarity when
prefixed by "Ah", you get the form a33 chan21-35.
I believe this has been going on for a long time, but I do recall
seeing some articles on how items have gained or lost changed
tones over time.
Books not mentioning it might be the result of listing the changed
tone alone and not mentioning the base tone (in some cases,
the changed tone has overwhelmed the base tone and speakers no
longer always know what the base tone originally was, particularly
in the colloquial strata where reference to rhymebooks and other
dialects cannot always be made).
Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
-
Thomas Chan
Re: Tone Sandhi
Mark wrote:
>
> As for Xiansheng (for why I'm saying it, tone isn't extremely
> important), seeing the Cantonese equavalent (Sinsaang) made
> me think-- that's like Japanese in that in Japanese you say
> Sensei.
That is true to some extent, but I think it clouds the issue in
this situation. While 先生 is xiansheng in Mandarin, sinsaang in
Cantonese, and sensei in Japanese (and similar in Korean), it doesn't
have the same meanings or usages. Just between two Mandarin and
Cantonese, 先生 may also mean 'teacher' in Cantonese (irregardless of
whether the teacher is male or female) in addition to the more
ordinary meaning of 'Mr.', whereas in Japanese, 先生 is only
'teacher', although it is extended to various other kinds of
esteemed individuals besides teachers that Chinese would not dignify
in such a manner.
Add to this that 先生 wouldn't be the normal Cantonese term for 'Mr.'
when suffixed to a surname, but the "Mr. Zhang"/"Mr. Chang" (or more
appropriately here, "Mr. Cheung") would simply be a 張生 jeung55saang55
Sometimes the final changes to ~ saan55, which acccidently
resembles the Japanese honorific suffix -san. This truncation also
happens for 'Mrs.', hence 張太 jeung55tai33-35 rather than *張太太.
Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
>
> As for Xiansheng (for why I'm saying it, tone isn't extremely
> important), seeing the Cantonese equavalent (Sinsaang) made
> me think-- that's like Japanese in that in Japanese you say
> Sensei.
That is true to some extent, but I think it clouds the issue in
this situation. While 先生 is xiansheng in Mandarin, sinsaang in
Cantonese, and sensei in Japanese (and similar in Korean), it doesn't
have the same meanings or usages. Just between two Mandarin and
Cantonese, 先生 may also mean 'teacher' in Cantonese (irregardless of
whether the teacher is male or female) in addition to the more
ordinary meaning of 'Mr.', whereas in Japanese, 先生 is only
'teacher', although it is extended to various other kinds of
esteemed individuals besides teachers that Chinese would not dignify
in such a manner.
Add to this that 先生 wouldn't be the normal Cantonese term for 'Mr.'
when suffixed to a surname, but the "Mr. Zhang"/"Mr. Chang" (or more
appropriately here, "Mr. Cheung") would simply be a 張生 jeung55saang55
Sometimes the final changes to ~ saan55, which acccidently
resembles the Japanese honorific suffix -san. This truncation also
happens for 'Mrs.', hence 張太 jeung55tai33-35 rather than *張太太.
Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
-
James Campbell
Re: Tone Sandhi
Thomas,
Thank you very much for that information. I've noticed reference to Hashimoto several times. I'll check the national library in Taipei to see if they have a copy. Is it in English or Chinese? --as they would put it in a different place in the library. I have here an English name and a Chinese (粵語音韵). The only Hashimoto I have in my library is Mantarou Hashimoto's Ancient Chinese Phonology--an excellent work.
I've also found a discussion of the tone changes in my copy of 漢語方言概要.
>Yue (1972: 112) only gives the following for sandhi:
>53 -> 55 / __ 53/55/5
>21 -> 22 / __ 21/22
>(i.e., the 53 variant of yinping becomes the 55 variant when
>preceded by 53, 55, or 5 yinru; 21 yangping becomes 22 yangqu
>when preceded by 21 or 22--I know you can read the notation,
>but I just wanted to apply the traditional names to the tone
>contours)
Based on your description, I would write it as follows:
53 -> 55 / 53/55/5 ___
21 -> 22 / 21/22 ___
since you mentioned, "when preceded by".
>other change because it "...is seldom noticed partly because
>the pitch level of that tone is so low that that the distinction
>between a level and a falling variety often escapes the ear,
>and partly because many speakers probably do not pronounce
>the tone normally with a falling contour..." (113), etc. I'm sure
Quite true, and this goes for any other language in China. In actual application of the tones, I consider these things as "low" and do not worry about the different contours, because even if I pronounce it wrong it will probably still go unnoticed. But of course, for academic purposes, it's obligatory to be exact when describing these tones in print.
>Books not mentioning it might be the result of listing the changed
>tone alone and not mentioning the base tone (in some cases,
>the changed tone has overwhelmed the base tone and speakers no
>longer always know what the base tone originally was, particularly
>in the colloquial strata where reference to rhymebooks and other
>dialects cannot always be made).
I noticed this also happens in Minnan. If you take a word and pronounce it in isolation, sometimes people will still say it's sandhi-ed counterpart.
It was interesting about the shortening of 先生 and 太太. We do this with 先生 in Mandarin as well (or should I say Taiwanese Mandarin as I'm not sure about it in Beijing), but not with 太太. Or perhaps it is because they are spoken so fast the two words blend together: xi-eng, which sounds more or less like the Taiwanese 生 s(i)eng--also used. In Taiwanese Hokkien (Minnan), 先生 is always pronounced in neutral tone after names.
Because of Japanese influence in Taiwan, if a Taiwanese wanted to use the word 先生 for the meaning of teacher, they would pronounce it sensei instead--and this can be heard sometimes.
James Campbell
Thank you very much for that information. I've noticed reference to Hashimoto several times. I'll check the national library in Taipei to see if they have a copy. Is it in English or Chinese? --as they would put it in a different place in the library. I have here an English name and a Chinese (粵語音韵). The only Hashimoto I have in my library is Mantarou Hashimoto's Ancient Chinese Phonology--an excellent work.
I've also found a discussion of the tone changes in my copy of 漢語方言概要.
>Yue (1972: 112) only gives the following for sandhi:
>53 -> 55 / __ 53/55/5
>21 -> 22 / __ 21/22
>(i.e., the 53 variant of yinping becomes the 55 variant when
>preceded by 53, 55, or 5 yinru; 21 yangping becomes 22 yangqu
>when preceded by 21 or 22--I know you can read the notation,
>but I just wanted to apply the traditional names to the tone
>contours)
Based on your description, I would write it as follows:
53 -> 55 / 53/55/5 ___
21 -> 22 / 21/22 ___
since you mentioned, "when preceded by".
>other change because it "...is seldom noticed partly because
>the pitch level of that tone is so low that that the distinction
>between a level and a falling variety often escapes the ear,
>and partly because many speakers probably do not pronounce
>the tone normally with a falling contour..." (113), etc. I'm sure
Quite true, and this goes for any other language in China. In actual application of the tones, I consider these things as "low" and do not worry about the different contours, because even if I pronounce it wrong it will probably still go unnoticed. But of course, for academic purposes, it's obligatory to be exact when describing these tones in print.
>Books not mentioning it might be the result of listing the changed
>tone alone and not mentioning the base tone (in some cases,
>the changed tone has overwhelmed the base tone and speakers no
>longer always know what the base tone originally was, particularly
>in the colloquial strata where reference to rhymebooks and other
>dialects cannot always be made).
I noticed this also happens in Minnan. If you take a word and pronounce it in isolation, sometimes people will still say it's sandhi-ed counterpart.
It was interesting about the shortening of 先生 and 太太. We do this with 先生 in Mandarin as well (or should I say Taiwanese Mandarin as I'm not sure about it in Beijing), but not with 太太. Or perhaps it is because they are spoken so fast the two words blend together: xi-eng, which sounds more or less like the Taiwanese 生 s(i)eng--also used. In Taiwanese Hokkien (Minnan), 先生 is always pronounced in neutral tone after names.
Because of Japanese influence in Taiwan, if a Taiwanese wanted to use the word 先生 for the meaning of teacher, they would pronounce it sensei instead--and this can be heard sometimes.
James Campbell
-
Thomas Chan
Re: Tone Sandhi
James Campbell wrote:
>
> Thank you very much for that information. I've noticed
> reference to Hashimoto several times. I'll check the national
> library in Taipei to see if they have a copy. Is it in
> English or Chinese? --as they would put it in a different
> place in the library. I have here an English name and a
> Chinese (粵語音韵). The only Hashimoto I have in my
> library is Mantarou Hashimoto's Ancient Chinese Phonology--an
> excellent work.
Her book is in English. She's the spouse of that late Hashimoto, and
the book is part of the same series as the one he wrote the Hakka
volume for. She publishes under three different combinations of different
pieces of her (romanized) Chinese and English name.
I don't know if that book has a Chinese title; it doesn't bear any
on it itself, although it might have been given a provisional one in
Chinese bibliographies on dialect studies.
> >Yue (1972: 112) only gives the following for sandhi:
> >53 -> 55 / __ 53/55/5
> >21 -> 22 / __ 21/22
> >(i.e., the 53 variant of yinping becomes the 55 variant when
> >preceded by 53, 55, or 5 yinru; 21 yangping becomes 22 yangqu
> >when preceded by 21 or 22--I know you can read the notation,
> >but I just wanted to apply the traditional names to the tone
> >contours)
>
> Based on your description, I would write it as follows:
> 53 -> 55 / 53/55/5 ___
> 21 -> 22 / 21/22 ___
> since you mentioned, "when preceded by".
Oops, my mistake there. I meant "followed by".
> It was interesting about the shortening of 先生 and 太太. We
> do this with 先生 in Mandarin as well (or should I say
> Taiwanese Mandarin as I'm not sure about it in Beijing), but
> not with 太太. Or perhaps it is because they are spoken so
> fast the two words blend together: xi-eng, which sounds more
> or less like the Taiwanese 生 s(i)eng--also used. In
> Taiwanese Hokkien (Minnan), 先生 is always pronounced in
> neutral tone after names.
I think this is the sort of thing that is rarely mentioned; in
Cantonese, the 生 of yi生 'physician' is sang rather than *saang,
and saan rather than *saang in X-生 'Mr. X', but I never saw a
mention of this until that 1997 Bauer and Benedict book--most
sources will give the citation saang.
If you don't mind less organized books, there is Chao Yuen-ren's
_Cantonese Primer_ published in 1947 (precursor to the more famous
_Mandarin Primer_ which is a re-write of the former) using his own idiosyncratic Guoyeu Romatzyh-inspired romanization system. He buries
quite a lot of detail in passing or in footnotes. Alas, even 1947 despite
being an era where the two sets of fricatives and affricates have merged
(no more "s/sh", "ch/ts", etc), there are still more changes to go in the
following decades, as you mentioned in a previous post.
> Because of Japanese influence in Taiwan, if a Taiwanese
> wanted to use the word 先生 for the meaning of teacher, they
> would pronounce it sensei instead--and this can be heard
> sometimes.
Do they also use that term for a physican?
Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
>
> Thank you very much for that information. I've noticed
> reference to Hashimoto several times. I'll check the national
> library in Taipei to see if they have a copy. Is it in
> English or Chinese? --as they would put it in a different
> place in the library. I have here an English name and a
> Chinese (粵語音韵). The only Hashimoto I have in my
> library is Mantarou Hashimoto's Ancient Chinese Phonology--an
> excellent work.
Her book is in English. She's the spouse of that late Hashimoto, and
the book is part of the same series as the one he wrote the Hakka
volume for. She publishes under three different combinations of different
pieces of her (romanized) Chinese and English name.
I don't know if that book has a Chinese title; it doesn't bear any
on it itself, although it might have been given a provisional one in
Chinese bibliographies on dialect studies.
> >Yue (1972: 112) only gives the following for sandhi:
> >53 -> 55 / __ 53/55/5
> >21 -> 22 / __ 21/22
> >(i.e., the 53 variant of yinping becomes the 55 variant when
> >preceded by 53, 55, or 5 yinru; 21 yangping becomes 22 yangqu
> >when preceded by 21 or 22--I know you can read the notation,
> >but I just wanted to apply the traditional names to the tone
> >contours)
>
> Based on your description, I would write it as follows:
> 53 -> 55 / 53/55/5 ___
> 21 -> 22 / 21/22 ___
> since you mentioned, "when preceded by".
Oops, my mistake there. I meant "followed by".
> It was interesting about the shortening of 先生 and 太太. We
> do this with 先生 in Mandarin as well (or should I say
> Taiwanese Mandarin as I'm not sure about it in Beijing), but
> not with 太太. Or perhaps it is because they are spoken so
> fast the two words blend together: xi-eng, which sounds more
> or less like the Taiwanese 生 s(i)eng--also used. In
> Taiwanese Hokkien (Minnan), 先生 is always pronounced in
> neutral tone after names.
I think this is the sort of thing that is rarely mentioned; in
Cantonese, the 生 of yi生 'physician' is sang rather than *saang,
and saan rather than *saang in X-生 'Mr. X', but I never saw a
mention of this until that 1997 Bauer and Benedict book--most
sources will give the citation saang.
If you don't mind less organized books, there is Chao Yuen-ren's
_Cantonese Primer_ published in 1947 (precursor to the more famous
_Mandarin Primer_ which is a re-write of the former) using his own idiosyncratic Guoyeu Romatzyh-inspired romanization system. He buries
quite a lot of detail in passing or in footnotes. Alas, even 1947 despite
being an era where the two sets of fricatives and affricates have merged
(no more "s/sh", "ch/ts", etc), there are still more changes to go in the
following decades, as you mentioned in a previous post.
> Because of Japanese influence in Taiwan, if a Taiwanese
> wanted to use the word 先生 for the meaning of teacher, they
> would pronounce it sensei instead--and this can be heard
> sometimes.
Do they also use that term for a physican?
Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
-
ichi
Re: Tone Sandhi
James -- you're right. I really shouldn't try to answer anything more than basic questions about a language that I barely understand -- it's a good reminder that I should study more
baibai.
baibai.
-
Sum Won
Re: Tone Sandhi
Thomas:
If you take 先 and 生, and translate them literally (I probably shouldn't be doing this though) you'd get "First-born". This was usually used to refer to the Daoists (and maybe other "truth-seekers" of the sort), who generally lived longer (according to myth, which I suppose I shouldn't be using again, but maybe they did have a better healthier living style). Now, since these people lived longer, they tended to know more than the "youngens" who died earlier in life (as goes the saying, "with age, comes wisdom"). This was a term used for people who weren't necessarily scholars, but usually for such people who knew more than the general public. In fact, it was a sign of honor to be called 先生. Hence, when the Japanese borrowed 先生, they kinda' kept the whole "knowledge" thing, but used it in refernce to teachers (and doctors also).
Many Kanji used in Japanese retain the same meaning it had in ancient times, for example:
湯: Originally meant "hot water", but means "soup" to the Chinese now
鏑: Arrow (Or was it "Arrow-head", I forgot)
Sorry, I'd actually have more information available, but my local library is closed for renovations, and won't be opened for November. I just remember that this mention of 先生 was made in "Vermilion Bird: T'ang Images of the South" --A book a frequently refer to.
If you take 先 and 生, and translate them literally (I probably shouldn't be doing this though) you'd get "First-born". This was usually used to refer to the Daoists (and maybe other "truth-seekers" of the sort), who generally lived longer (according to myth, which I suppose I shouldn't be using again, but maybe they did have a better healthier living style). Now, since these people lived longer, they tended to know more than the "youngens" who died earlier in life (as goes the saying, "with age, comes wisdom"). This was a term used for people who weren't necessarily scholars, but usually for such people who knew more than the general public. In fact, it was a sign of honor to be called 先生. Hence, when the Japanese borrowed 先生, they kinda' kept the whole "knowledge" thing, but used it in refernce to teachers (and doctors also).
Many Kanji used in Japanese retain the same meaning it had in ancient times, for example:
湯: Originally meant "hot water", but means "soup" to the Chinese now
鏑: Arrow (Or was it "Arrow-head", I forgot)
Sorry, I'd actually have more information available, but my local library is closed for renovations, and won't be opened for November. I just remember that this mention of 先生 was made in "Vermilion Bird: T'ang Images of the South" --A book a frequently refer to.