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Tone-change and tone-shift in White Miao

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

G. B. Downer
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Extract

‘Tone’, at least in the literature dealing with Far Eastern languages, is commonly used in several ways: for instance, in ‘the tones of the language’, or ‘Cantonese has seven tones’, reference is made to the tones as membersof a system, while in ‘such-and-such a word has tone X’ the reference is tothe assignment of an item to one of the members of the system. The differencein reference is made quite clear by the context, and no ambiguity ensues; theconcept of ‘tone’ remains precise, and difficulties arise only when no distinctionis made between ‘tone’ as used above and the realization of tones in particularenvironments. Far different is the use of expressions denoting ‘changes intone’, for which there is no agreed terminology. In diachronic work, ‘change’ usually refers to changes through time in the overall system of basic tones, and secondarily to changes in the assignment of items to members of this system, as, for instance, when it is said that in Standard Chinese, items with voicedplosive initials changed from the shăng tone to the qù tone by the Sung dynasty.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , October 1967 , pp. 589 - 599
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1967

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References

1 The examples given in Wang Fu-shih , ‘ ;Tsên-yang fen-hei hê. chi-lü Han-Tsang yü-hsi yü-yen-tê shêng-tiao’ , Chung-kuo Yü-wên , 1956, 6, p. 19 are of tonal split between nouns and verbs (in Weining dialect) in PM tones 2b and 3b, although not so described there.

2 Work was done on WM with informants from Xiengkhouang in Luang Prabang, and with GM informants in Sayaboury, during the period 1964–5.

3 Chang Kun ‘Miao- Yao-yu sheng-tiao wen-t'i’ , Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology (Academia Sinica), XVI, 1947, 93–110.Google Scholar

4 This split is documented for the Qiandong dialects also (quoted below from the Miao-Han chien-ming ts'ŭ-tien (Ch'ien-tung fang-yen) ), Kweichou, 1958), and so may be ascribed to PM. Examples of PMY tone 4 with ‘a’ prosodies: Yao WM QD Yao WM QD bear kíap dai4 dlik get túq to5 dot laugh kydá t∂4 diek iron hli∂q lho5 hlet and ‘b’ prosodies: see pwât p∂7 bongf bird n∂q no6 nes fan byâ:p ntsua7 senf carve tsûq tso6 sos

This split accounts for most of the exceptional tonal correspondences mentioned in Chang, Kun, ‘A comparative study of the Yao tone system’, Language, XLII, 2, 1966, 310.Google Scholar

5 A summary of the geographical extent of these dialect groups appears in ‘Miao-yu kai-k'uang’ , Chung-kuo Yü-wên , 1962, 1, pp. 28–9.

6 Information on these dialects is taken from: Miao-Han chien-ming ts'ŭ-tien (Ch'uan Ch'ien-Tien fang-yen), Kweichou, 1958, and ‘Miao-yu kai-k'uang’ (see p. 590, n. 5) for the Xianjin dialect of Kweichou; Ruey Yih-fu and Kuan Tung-kuei , Marriage and mortuary customs of the Magpie Miao, southern Szechuan, China (Institute of History and Philology Monographs (Academia Sinica), Ser. A, No. 23), Taipei, 1962, for Magpie Miao; and Wang Fu-shih, ‘Kwei-chou Wei-ning Miao-yu liang-ts'u’ , Yu-yen Yen-chiu , 2, 1957, 75–121, for Weining dialect.

7 The sign > is used synchronically to denote the alternation between a basic tone and a modified tone. Since it is postulated that in an earlier stage of the language, no modification took place, the sign may also be read diachronically as ‘has developed into’.

8 GM shows no change here: kyav2 ntfw6, pu2 ntsue 6.

9 ‘Miao-yu kai-k'uang’ (see p. 590, n. 5), 31.

10 Ruey and Kuan, op. cit., 525, and examples passim.

11 Wang Fu-shih (see p. 589, n. 1), 20.

12 See Whitaker, K. P. K., ‘A study of the modified tones in spoken Cantonese’, Asia Major, NS, V, 1, 1955, 9–36, v, 2, 1956, 184–207Google Scholar; and Thomson, Lawrence C., A Vietnamese grammar, Seattle, 1965, sec. 7.3, where further references to work on this question may be found.Google Scholar

13 See p. 596, n. 11.