Re: Sound changes

Quoting "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>:

> There is the distinction between nasal and non-nasal stops too. For
> example,
>         [p&]            "uncle" or "to climb"
>         [p~&~]          "sickness"
>
>         [p_hi]          to sprawl (used of a person) or to spread (used of
>                         eg. a blanket)
>         [p~_hi~]        "nose".
>
>         [t_hi]          "metal"
>         [t~_hi~]        "to weave"
These are somewhat odd.  If what you mean by nasal stops is
_nasalized_ stops, then those are usually transcribed with [_N]
or some such notation. But the odd thing is that you seem to
be saying her that these are voiceless *and* have aspirate/
nonaspirate distinctions.  I think it's fair to say that, if
not unattested, these would be *very* rare.

> > BTW, is the name "Hokkien" by any chance related to the province-name
> > Fujian/Fukien? Been meaning to ask this since I first heard the word
> > "Hokkien", but for some reason 've never come to it before.
> [snip]
>
> "Hokkien" is transliterated from how natives pronounce the name; "Fujian"
> is transliterated from the Mandarin pronunciation. They are one and the
> same. And of course, manglings like "Fukienese" is just an anglicization
> of the Mandarin pronunciation of a Hokkien name. :-P
I thought Fukienese came ultimately from an anglicization of
the Classical Chinese, which hadn't palatalized the /k/ yet?
(As the native dialect hasn't.)

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier
Dept. of Linguistics  "Nihil magis praestandum est quam ne pecorum ritu
University of Chicago sequamur antecedentium gregem, pergentes non qua
1010 E. 59th Street   eundum est, sed qua itur." -- Seneca
Chicago, IL 60637

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