Re: The Lumanesian is BACK!!!

Mathias M. Lassailly wrote:

> I'm sure you more learned than I am in this respect but just in case I
> thought, well, maybe you could procure the explanations of how Chinese
> itself became tonal. I read all that 10s of years ago (;-) and I can't
> find this book out from my shelves but it's FASCINATING.
In a word, suffixes in Old Chinese (null, -s, -h, -p/t/k) became
the four tones of Middle Chinese; the -s and -h got lost and
the -p, -t, -k remained.  In Mandarin the fourth tone vanished
when the stop finals were lost, but the first tone split into two
(keeping the number of tones at four).

--
John Cowan      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
        You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
        You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
                Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)