Richard:
>According to Jerry Norman, _Chinese_ (CUP, 1988) some Mandarin
>dialects (not Beijing) have /?/ > /N/, subsequent to a loss of /N/.
Standard Mandarin doesn't have initial velar nasals anywhere in its
vocabulary. The Cantonese equivalent of /ng/ "five" for example is
/wu/ and /ngo/ is /wo/. I've never heard Mandarin with /ng-/ before.
Hmm.
>Are you sure n > l isn't a Hong Kong ( => Vancouver, Cantonese)
>feature rather than Mandarin?
I know it occurs in Cantonese. There is /nei/ and /lei/ both meaning
"you". However, if I understand, it also occurs in Mandarin like /lan/
instead of /nan/. Maybe I'm wrong. Anybody speak Mandarin on this
list?
= gLeN
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