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Re: The Lumanesian is BACK!!!

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Thursday, November 12, 1998, 21:55
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)