Re: THEORY: Sandhi

>From: Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
>Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2001 20:30:33 -0500
>
>Adam Walker wrote:
> > And Taiwanese even has some vestiges of grammar.  There are seperate
>plural
> > forms of the personal pronouns marked by a sufixed -n -- goa, goan; li,
>lin;
> > i, in.  Mandarin requires an "extra" word, men, for this -- wo, women;
>ni,
> > nimen; ta, tamen.  You've got two "wasted" phonemes there AND an extra
> > character to write!
>
>So, do they use separate characters for the singular and plural forms?
>And is it related to Mandarin -men?
>
>--
I'm not sue if it's related to -men or not.  I've seen it explained as a
"contraction" of the pronoun + men, but you get LOTS of folk etymologies.
I've never seen/heard anything scholarly on the topic.

But, yes, they use single characters to write the plural forms.

goa2 is written using the same character as Mandarin -- wo3

goan2 is written using a non-standard character composed of the ren2 radical
on the left side and yuan2 meaning: first, head, chief, eldest; Mongol
Dynasty; good, large, great; a dollar; black -- on the right side.


li2 is written using the same character as Mandarin -- ni3

lin2 is written using the Mandarin character ren4 meaning: thus, so, in this
way; to consider; to think -- which has ren4 meaning an official position
(also a less common surname) on top and xin1 meaning heart on top.


i1 is written using the Mandarin character yi1 meaning: he, she, it, that
one -- which seems to be used mostly as a demonstrative -- and has the ren2
radical on the left and yin3 meaning: to govern, to rule; a director, an
overseer; earnest, sincere -- on the right side

in1 is written using a non-standard character with the ren2 radical on the
left an yin1 meaning because on the right.

Adam

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