Movatterモバイル変換

12.4.28.23:48:MUL-LING OVER KOREANL-STEMS

Last night I could have mentionedthree more verbs that could be confused with themut-verbs:

물-다 mul-ta 'bite'

물-다 mul-ta 'pay'

물-다 mūl-ta 'go bad, spoil, turn sour'

(The hangul spelling of all three verbs is identical despitedifferences in vowel length. Not all speakers distinguish long andshort vowels.)

물-어 mur-ŏ 'bite/pay/spoil/ask'

물-어 mūr-ŏ 'spoil'

묻-어 mud-ŏ 'bury'

What would be a good test of confusion between the two? I Googled

사체(死體)-를 물-어

sachhe-rŭl mur-ŏ

'bury a corpse'

with the wrong infinitive and got the legitimate

사체(死體)-를 물-어-뜯-

sachhe-rŭl mur-ŏ-ttŭt-

'bite a corpse' (lit. '... bite-INF-tear apart')

since Google does not take Korean word spacing into account.

I had a hard time with Korean verbs withl/r as a student.Apparently even native Koreans do. Today I found this passage in Martin(1992: 238; I have changed his romanization to match mine and addedemphasis and hyphens):

Thel-doubling vowel stem has a shape which ends invowel+ rŭ-.When the infinitive(-ŏ/-a)or the pasttense(-ŏss-/-ass-)is attached, the vowel ŭdrops, asexpected [the vowel sequenceŭ-ŏ is absent from Korean verbconjugation],and the remaining lgeminates [= doubles]-as not expected:

purŭ- > pull-ŏ 'calls'

morŭ- > mōll-a 'does not know'(the longōin the infinitive [of 'does not know']and forms derivedfrom it is an irregularity).

Many Koreans regularize these verbs by doubling theleverywhere; they treat the stems aspullŭ-, mollŭ-,etc.

This error seems much more common than confusing the conjugation of'bury' and 'ask':

-ㄴ다-nda is a present ending for vowel-final stems. Theequivalent ending for consonant-final stems is -는다-nŭnda whichwas in two examples from last night:

묻-는다 mun-nŭnda 'buries' (present;-t >-nbefore-n-)

묻-는다 mun-nŭnda 'asks' (present;-t > -nbefore-n-)

Going back to where I started from,-l stems like 물- mul-lose their-l before certain endings and become vowel-finalstems: e.g.,

문다mu-nda (not *물-는다*mul-lŭnda**with-l) 'bites'

문다mu-nda (not *물-는다*mul-lŭnda with-l) 'pays'

문다mū-nda (not *물-는다*mūl-lŭnda with-l) 'spoils'

*The Korean 'infinitive' is not like a Europeaninfinitive. It can even be the solefinite verb in a 半말panmal'half-speech' style sentence (23:57: hence Martin's translations with'-s': 'calls'). So I am not comfortable with the termeven though some linguists use it. I would rather not argue that Koreanverbs have an infinitive and a homophonous finite form.

*Koreann- becomesl- after-l,though this is not reflected in hangul spelling (in < >):

물-는다 <mur-nŭnta> mul-nŭnda>mul-lŭnda

There is only one hangul letter ㄹ <r> for [r] and [l].

12.4.27.23:59:BURYING QUESTIONS, ASKING CORPSES

Two Korean verbs have identical forms in dictionaries:

묻-다 mut-ta 'bury'

묻-다 mut-ta 'ask'

They remain identical as long as consonant-initial suffixes areadded: e.g.,

묻-고mut-ko 'bury, and ...'

묻-고mut-ko 'ask, and ...'

묻-는다 mun-nŭnda 'bury' (present;-t > -nbefore-n-)

묻-는다 mun-nŭnda 'ask' (present;-t > -nbefore-n-)

However, the-t of 'ask' (but not 'bury') becomes-rbefore vowel-initial suffixes: e.g.,

묻-었다mud-ŏtta 'buried'(-t- >-d-between vowels)

물-었다mur-ŏtta 'asked'

묻-으면mud-ŭmyŏn 'if ... bury'

물-으면mur-ŭmyŏn 'if ... ask'

(All vowel-initial suffixes are written with the zero consonantletter ㅇ shaped with a zero.)

Given the substantial overlap between the paradigms of 'bury' and'ask', I wondered if Koreans mix them up. I Googled the followingphrases with correct and incorrect conjugation:

Given the extreme rarity of errors, Korean learners have no excusenot to conjugate these two verbs correctly.

However, I was surprised to see 31,300 results for *듣-었다*tŭd-ŏtta,an error for 들-었다tŭr-ŏtta 'heard', the past form of 듣-다tŭt-ta 'hear' which conjugates like 묻-다mut-ta 'ask'.Why is the wrong form of 'heard' much more common than the wrong formof 'asked'?(I presume 'hear' and 'ask' have similar frequencies as common verbs ofspeech; one hears and asks more than one buries, so I would expect'bury' to have a lower frequency.) There is no homophonous verb*듣-다*tŭt-tawith-d before vowel-initial stems, so 듣-었다*tŭd-ŏtta'heard' must be by analogy to 듣-다tŭt-ta and other-t-finalforms of 'hear'. (The shift oft tod between vowelsin *tŭd-ŏtta is automatic.)

In theory, Koreans could reanalyze-t stems as-nstems due to forms like 묻-는다 mun-nŭnda, but Ican't find any examples of

*사체(死體)-를 문-었다 *sachhe-rŭl mun-ŏtta 'buried a corpse'

*질문(質問)-을 문-었다 *chilmun-ŭl mun-ŏtta 'asked aquestion'

with-n instead of the correct stem-final consonants.Perhapsthis is because Korean verbs with nasal-final stems are rare*; thereare not enough of them to serve as analogical models for conjugatingthe far more common verbs with-t stems.

*4.28.1:12: If Alexander Vovin (2010) is correct, this rarity is theresult of a sound change:

- Old*-nt stems became-t stems:

*munt- >mut- 'bury'

There are no longer any-nt stems in Middle Korean ormodern Korean.

- Old*-t stems became-r stems before vowels:

*mut- >mur- 'ask' (but stillmut-before consonants)

- Old*-n stems almost always became vowel-finalstems:

*on- >o- 'come'

but-n- remains in the imperativeon-ŏra!'come!'

but all other imperatives of modern vowel-final stemslack-n-: e.g.,

po-ara! 'see!',  not*pon-ara!'see!'

Exception 1:an- 'embrace' might be an archaism thatretained its-n

Exception 2:shin- 'put on one's feet' might haveretained-n to continue to resemble its source, the nounshin'shoe'.

These are the only two 'pure' modern-n stems. Theothers listed in Martin (1992: 364) are abbreviations of stems endingin vowels or clusters:

non- ~nonŭ- 'distribute'

mun- ~munŭ- 'demolish'

kkŭn- ~kkŭnh- 'cut'

12.4.26.23:59:PROTHESIS IN PRONOUNS: SWEDISH AND SLAVIC

Here'syetanother Wikipedia passage that had me thinking,Is this thereal deal?

[Swedish] ni ['you' (pl.)]is derived fromanolder pronoun I*,"ye", for whichverbs were always conjugated with the ending -en. Ibecameniwhen this conjugation was dropped; thus then was movedfrom the end of the verb to the beginning of the pronoun.

I VERB-en >n-i VERB-?

But Swedish also has a verb-subject construction in which the-enwould directly precedeI:

VERB-en I > VERBn-i

Was this second order extremely common in older Swedish?

This change hasa parallel in Old Norse.

Slavic languages also have a protheticn- in pronouns. Theseselected forms give you some idea of the variation within Slavic:

Polish and Russiann-forms are used before prepositions. Thelocative always hasn- since it is always preceded byprepositions. One  might then conclude that then- is anold final consonant of one or more prepositions that came to beassociated with the following pronoun. Yes, I guessed right for once!Bacz (2009: 168)wrote (emphasis mine):

According to the historical grammars of Polish (e.g.Kuraszkiewicz 1972: 130-31), the pronominal third personn'-[i.e., palatalizedn-] forms replaced the original suppletivej-forms in the declensional paradigm of the pronounson,ona, ono 'he, she, it'  when-n, the final consonant ofthe prototypical Slavic prepositions*vъn (modernw)'in' and*sъn (modernz) 'with' shifted andmechanically attached itself to the locative and the instrumentalj-forms of the following pronouns, respectively. The shift isillustrated by the examples in (4) taken from Doroszewski andWieczorkiewicz (1972: 92).

(4) Forms before the shift : Forms after the shift

*vъn-jemь-LOC. 'in him' :wnim-LOC.'inhim'

*sъn-jimь-INST. 'with him' :znim-INST.'with him'

The initialn' of the prepositional pronominal forms inthe locative and the instrumental after the prepositionsw 'in'ands/z 'with' has, with time, generalized to the otherprepositions used with these cases [which did not end in-n](such asprzynim-L 'next to him',ponim-L'after him', etc.) and to the other prepositional cases: genitive,dative and accusative (oniego-G 'to him', kuniemu-D'toward him', przezniego-A 'because of him').

4.27.0:11: Bacz introduced me to Polish preposition-pronouncontractions: e.g.,weń <w niego 'in him'. InEnglish, contractions may be considered nonliterary, but in Polish,these contractions are literary, which explains why I haven't seen themin grammars for learners.

*Danish still hasI 'you' (pl.)withoutn-.Norwegian once hadI but now hasderewhich was "only slowly breaking its way into literary language" in theearly 20th century (Groth1914: 71).Note that this capitalizedI is a second person plural unlikeits first person singular English homographI. I assumenorthern GermanicI is cognate to

Englishye, you

Dutchjij ~je (coincidentally a homograph ofFrenchje 'I') 'you' (sg.) andjullie 'you' (pl.; <jij+lui 'people')

Germanihr 'you' (pl.)

and even Sanskrityūyam (nom.),yuṣma- (obliquestem) 'you' (pl.)

Icelandic hasþið 'you' (pl.; originally dual; cf. Old Norseþit). The old plural isþér (same as Old Norse),presumably cognate to Norwegiandere and homophonous with thedative singular of Icelandicþú 'thou'.

Theþ- of the Old Norse pronouns (and byextension Icelandic and thed- of Norwegiandere) isfroma verb ending (emphasis mine):

The nominative forms are often suffixed to the verb, e.g.mæli-k'I speak',má-k-at 'I cannot'(-at 'not', frequent inpoetry). Similarlyheyrðu andskaltu <skaltþú. Such occurrences with the dual and pluralforms of the second person pronoun led to re-analysis on the part ofthe speakers:skuluð ér >skuluðér wassubsequently interpreted asskuluþér. Hence thealternate formsþit andþér[fororiginal dualit and pluralér] and the frequent use of the3rd person plural[withþ-] in place of the 2nd person.

Old Norseér 'you' looks like a cognate of Germanihr'you' (pl.).

12.4.25.23:59:DEFINITE ARTICLES IN COLOGNIAN: WHAT'STHÉ DIFFERENCE?

Last Tuesday, I returned to blogging after a long hiatus because Iwas driven to look intothe dubiousWikipedia claim that there were Hmong in the Tangut Empire. Andlast Saturday I found an error inthedescription of Gan tones in the English Wikipedia (now corrected!). So as much as I loveWikipedia, I don't believe everything I read on it. There are errorsthere (and here too - sigh). Tonight I saw these two passages andinitiallywondered what they were describing (emphasis mine):

EnglishWikipedia:Colognian has twodistinct sets of definitearticles indicating focus and uniqueness

GermanWikipedia:Die bestimmten Artikel des Kölschen haben jeweilszwei Ausprägungen,eine betonte und eine unbetonte, wovon diebetonteVariante mit dem entsprechenden Demonstrativpronomen zusammenfällt. Siewird vor allem benutzt, wenn auf einen bestimmten unter mehrerenmöglichen oder einen bereits bekannten Gegenstand Bezug genommen wird.„Es dat et Enkelche?“ Ist das Ihr Enkelchen / eines Ihrer Enkelchen?Aber: „Es et dat Enkelche?“ Ist es dieses Enkelchen?

'The definite article of Colognian has two forms,one stressedand one unstressed; the stressed variant coincides with thecorresponding demonstrative. It [the unstressed variant?] is usedespecially when referring to a certain one among several possiblitiesor one already known object of reference.„Es dat et Enkelche?“Is that your grandson/one of your grandsons? But:„Es et datEnkelche?“ Is it this grandson?

I was confused at first because I took "distinct" to mean'segmentallydistinct' which seemed to clash with stressed vs. 'unstressed'.I was erroneously assuming that a difference insegments could not be accompanied with differences in stress.*Wikipedia didn't seem to be wrong - butI was! D'oh! Then alight clicked on ... the right one, I hope:

Es datet Enkelche?

Is thatthe (unstressed) grandson (= your grandson or oneof your grandsons)?

Es etdat Enkelche?

Is itthe (stressed) grandson?

Et ('the'; neuter nominative singular) looks like it shouldbe a shorter, unstressed derivative of the demonstrativedat(cf. Dutchhet 'the' (neuter) anddat 'that') referringto a certain known object of reference (e.g., your grandson). Itsstressed counterpart isdat 'the' (cf. standard Germandas'the' (neuter) with-s <-t) which is identical tothe demonstrativedat.

4.26.1:00: My attempt at a table of Colognian definite articles:

I gotdä andde from thisstandard German-Colognian translatorsite and from browsingtheColognian Wikipedia (which oddly does not seem to have an articleon Colognian). Ah, I went to the site of theAkademie för uns Kölsche Sproch'Academy for Our Colognian Language' and useditsGerman-Colognian online dictionary to find the other nonneuterpronounsder anddie which happen to look like standardGerman. I was hoping for more exotic forms liked-lessäande which would be todä anddie whatd-lesset is todat.

Note the asymmetry: stressed m. 'the' is like Dutch 'the', but theother stressed 'the' are like German 'the' and Dutch 'that';conversedly, unstressed m. 'the' is like German 'the', but the otherunstressed 'the' are like Dutch 'the'. I would have predicted thatGerman-likeder was the stressed form, but it's actually theunstressed form even though it's longer than unstresseddä.

*4.26.1:10: Stressed and unstressed forms canbe segmentally quite different: e.g.,

Englisha can be stressed [ej] or unstressed [ə] (thoughthis is not indicated in spelling).

The dative singular of the Polish second person pronoun (i.e., 'tothee') can be stressedtobie [tɔ́bʲe] or unstressedci[tɕi] (< earlierti?).

How could I have forgotten that?

12.4.24.23:54:SOURCE OF THE SUN?

I looked up the tonal term (and 'sun' among other things) 陽 yang (asinyin-yang) in Schuessler'sABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese(1997: 558) which linked it to Siamese ปลั่ง <plaŋ1> 'shiny',following Unger(inHao-ku33 (1986), a journal I've never seen. Let's suppose the Siamese wordwas borrowed from Chinese. Perhaps the earliestreconstructible form of the word in Chinese was

*pɯ-laŋ

I reconstruct a generic high vowel (symbolized as*ɯ) in thepresyllabic prefix to condition the partial raising of the root vowel:

*pɯ-laŋ >*pɯ-lɨaŋ >*lɨaŋ>*jɨaŋ > modern Mandarinyang

*l lenited to*j before higher vowels, whereas itbecame 'emphatic' (pharyngealized; indicated with underlining) beforelower vowels and hardened: e.g., in

餳 *laŋ >*laŋ >*daŋ> modern Mandarintang 'sweets'

written with the same phonetic 昜*laŋ plus semantic𩙿'eat'

is 糖 Mdtang <*daŋ 'sugar' cognate?

which might have lost a high vowel presyllable still in

𩛿 ~ 餳 *sɯ-laŋ >*sɯ-lɨaŋ >*slɨaŋ >*zlɨaŋ >*zɨaŋ > modernMandarinxing 'dried sweets'

Note the variation in phonetics:易 aswell as 昜 with anextra stroke*.

None of the 'sweets' words have early attestations.

Possible cognates:

昌*kɯ-s-laŋ>*khlaŋ or*kɯ-t-laŋ>tɕhɨaŋ > Mdchang 'bright'

*s-laŋ-ʔ >*hlaŋ-ʔ with a glottal stopsuffixmight be the source of Vietnameseláng 'shiny'

炳/昺/邴*T-pɯ-laŋ-ʔ >*rplɨaŋʔ >*prɨaŋʔ>*pɨaŋʔ > Mdbing 'bright'

Old Chinese is often reconstructed with medial*-r- allover the place. This is odd. Could a lot of these*-r- be fromearlier*t- or even*l-preinitials? I use*T-to represent an uncertain coronal preinitial(*t-, *l-, *r-).

*Could a 日 drawing of the sun have been a phonetic*lVKin 易*lek 'to change' as well as 昜*laŋ'south side'?

4.25.0:05?: No, going byGrammata serica recensa, earlyforms of 日 don't resemble what became 日 in the modern form of 易.

I also thought 日 could be a*lVK phonetic in 昌 (see above),but once again the early forms don't match.

12.4.23.23:59:DARK AND HEAVY YET LIGHT

TheWikipedia article on Cantonese phonology referred to the yin andyang tone categories as "dark" and "light". That choice of terms mademe realize that the Chinese "light flat" (yangping) tonecorresponded to the 玄huyền 'dark' tone category inVietnamese. And just now I noticed that the Chinese "lightrising/entering" (yangshang/ru) tones correspond to thenặng'heavy' tone category in Vietnamese. (But note that the "light"of Chinese tones refers to  brightness, not  weight.)

Vietnamese tonal terminology has no terms corresponding to yin andyang: each category has its own distinctive name containing the tone itrepresents:

(The table above is only for tones in native Vietnamese words. Therelationship between Chinese tones and tones in Chinese borrowings inVietnamese is very complex and beyond the scope of this entry.)

Speaking ofhuyền, I have recently been puzzled by theVietnamese termhuyền sử ca which I have seentranslated as 'epic'. Contexts indicate thathuyền sửwithoutca means 'myth'. I assume this word is Sino-Vietnamese

玄huyền 'dark' (and by extension,'mysterious')

史sử 'history'

歌ca 'song'

but have not been able to verify that etymology. If I am correct,its internal structure is Chinese: modifier-modified rather thanVietnamese modified-modifier. I can't find 玄史 in any Chinesedictionary, though Google lists 8,170 results. 玄史歌 has zero results inGoogle; perhaps it was coined in Vietnam, even if 玄史 was borrowed fromChinese.

Next: Source of the Sun?

12.4.22.23:51:DEPARTING THE DEPARTING TONE: MORE TONES IN GAN DIALECTS

The eight tone categories of Middle Chinese were

The terms are not necessarily descriptive: e.g., there is noguarantee that 'level' category tones were level in all Middle Chinesedialects (languages)? And it is difficult to imagine what contours wereassociated with the 'departing' and 'entering' tones. It is safest tothink of the terms as arbitrary, though they may have been partlymeaningful for the (standard?) dialects to which they were firstapplied. (The yin/yang and upper/lower terminology postdates thefour-way categorization devised before the great tone split.)

In 南昌 Nanchang Gan, yangshang syllables developed different tonesdepending on their initials:

- sonorant initial > shang

e.g., 馬 'horse': Middle Chinese*mæ + yangshang =Nanchangma+ shang

- obstruent initial > yangshang

e.g., 夏 'summer': Middle Chinese*ɣæ + yangshang=Nanchangha + yangqu

Thus the table above could be rewritten for Nanchang Gan as

But other Gan dialects had different merger patterns.

The Chinese Wikipedia sums up* the differentdescendants of the qutones in Gan dialects. I have partly reorganized its categories below:

A. Dialects with only one qu tone category resulting from ayinqu-yangqu merger:景德鎮 Jingdezhen, etc.

B. Dialects retaining the yinqu and yangqu categories

B1. Dialects with a single yinqu category: Nanchang, etc.

B2. Dialects with a split yinqu category:

The distinctive treatment of tones in syllables with aspiratedvoiceless initials is reminiscent of Thai and Lao:

B1a. 湖口 Hukou, etc.:

*unaspirated voiceless initial + yinqu >yinqu1

*aspirated voiceless initial + yinqu > yinqu2

B1b. 遂川 Suichuan which lacks yangqu:

*unaspirated voiceless initial + yinquandvoiced initial +yangqu > yinqu1

4.23.1:25: This implies that voiced initials wereunaspirated at the time of this change, even though Gan is known forhaving aspirated reflexes of voiced initials. Does Suichuan haveaspirated reflexes of voiced initials: e.g.,

*b- + yangqu >*b- +yinqu 1>ph- + yinqu 1?

*aspirated voiceless initial + yinqu > yinqu2

How many other Chinese varieties have this kind of initial-basedsplit of a yin tone?

C. Dialects with only one qu tone categorynot resultingfrom a yinqu-yangqu merger:

C1. Yinqu as sole surviving qu tone; yangqu >yinping:都昌 Duchang, etc.

C2. Yangqu as sole surviving qu tone

C2a. Yinqu >yangping: 新喻 Xinyu, etc.

C2b. Yinqu >shang: 石城 Shicheng (and others?)

C2c. Yinqu split: Tacheng (a subdialect of Nanchang?), etc.

unaspirated initial + yinqu >yangping

aspirated initial + yinqu >shang

D. Dialect(s?) with no qu tone categories:

In 寕岡 Ninggang,yinqu has becomeyangping andyangquhas becomeyinping.

*The Chinese Wikipedia's section on Gan tonesonly distinguishes between three out of the four types of MiddleChinese initials:

清 clear: unaspirated obstruents

次清 second clear: aspirated obstruents

濁 muddy: voiced obstruents

It is not clear from this section alone whether 次濁 second muddyinitials (voiced sonorants) conditioned the same tones as voicedobstruents. For simplicity, I will use the yin-yang terminology eventhough it's possible that yangqu tones in syllables with voicedsonorants may have developed differently from yangqu tones in syllableswith voiced obstruents.