Abstractness (Was Re: [j] v. [i])

From: Richard Wordingham
Message: 22736
Date: 2003-06-06

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>
wrote:
> Richard:
> >(Or is this a fossil of a change of initial /N/ to /?/? I
> >think has happened in some Mandarin Chinese dialects.)
>
> No, the only oscillation in Mandarin I'm aware of is between
> initial /n-/ and /l-/. However, what you're speaking of is
> Cantonese, a different dialect. Words like /ngo/ 'I' can be
> alternatively pronounced /o/. Likewise we have pairs
> like /ngoi/ or /oi/ "to love".

According to Jerry Norman, _Chinese_ (CUP, 1988) some Mandarin
dialects (not Beijing) have /?/ > /N/, subsequent to a loss of /N/. It can=

be more complicated – see e.g.
http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~huang/c882/C882_hw4.pdf (which
may not be around for long!) for the Rugao dialect of Mandarin. It looks
like a merger of initial /N/ and /?/ with some loss in clusters.

Are you sure n > l isn't a Hong Kong ( => Vancouver, Cantonese)
feature rather than Mandarin? See
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Pagoda/3847/sapienti/langintr.htm,
where its occurrence in the Hakka of Hong Kong is also mentioned.

Richard.