Re: Mandarin demonstratives (Re: Charyan novel! (was: Re: [CONLANG] I'm back!))

From: "H. S. Teoh"

> Adam Walker wrote:
> > BTW, what does Hokkien do with this??
> Hokkien does it similarly
> 1) tua3 gua4 chi1 peng2 (in my idiolect; probably "chi1 tau1"
>                          elsewhere)
>    at   me   this side
Is your "dao1" (tau1) the same "dao1" as in "lai7dao1" e5 "dao1" (inside)?
That'd be cool.

> 2) tua3 lu4 hi1  peng2 (or "hi1 tau1")
>    at   you that side
I learned "di7" for "at", but dialects is dialects. The only "dua7" I can
think of that might be cognate is "live"  ("Li2 dua3 dou2 wi7?", "Ni3
zhu4(zai4) na3li3?" "Where do you live?"

> It's definitely not possessive, as Hokkien would always stick the
> *genitive marker (-e) on all possessive constructs. It would sound
> extremely weird if you said
>         tua3 gua4-e chi1 peng2
I don't really know how to parse this construction either, even after
trolling Li & Thompson and Matthews & Yip. A smashing together of apposition
("ta1 nei4ge ren2"; "him, that guy") and locative structures ("zai4 wo3
hou4mian4"; "behind me";; "zai4 zhuo1zi shang4"; "on the table")?

> [Note: _hi1_ in my idiolect might be a contraction of _hia1_ or _hia4_??
Other way 'round, I should think. "hia1" (55;44) (which is the way I learned
it), hia2 (52) (apparently another Taiwan variant), or hia5 (24) (given as
Xiamen dialect) mean "there" (nei4li3/na4li3); it's also a contraction of
"hit4 e5" (nei4ge/nei4xie1), "that", when used as a pronoun.

> Anyway, it's a clipped tone, sorry I just can't sort out those tone
> numbers :-P
Yes, clipped. hit4 (33; going to 55 in sandhi) is "that"

"hit4 bing5" = "nei4bian1" ("that side", "over there")

"hit4 si5" = "nei4 shi2(hou4)" ("at that time", "then")

"hit4 kuan2" = "nei4 yang4", "nei4zhong3" ("that type", "that kind")

Similarly, "jia1" (55;44) is "here" (zhei4li3/zhe4li3); it's also a
contraction of "jit4 e5" (zhei4ge/zhe4xie1), "this", when used as a pronoun.

"jit4 bing5" = "zhei4bian1" ("this side", "over here")

"jit4 kuan2" = "zhei4 yang4", "zhei4zhong3" ("this type", "this kind")

> [*Note: I'm not sure what's the right orthographic representation of the
> -e genitive marker; but it's pronounced [E:], tone 3 (or was it a clipped
> tone? I can't get those clipped tone numbers straight).]
I don't think this is clipped: e5.

Kou

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