Re: THEORY: Sandhi

On Tue, 4 Dec 2001 10:52:12 -0800, Weiben Wang <weibenw@...> wrote:

>Chinese has what I've most often seen called tone
>sandhi.  The tones of some syllables can change in
>juncture with other syllables.  In Mandarin, it's
>fairly simple.  A third tone appearing before another
>third tone will change to second tone.  If there are
>more than two third tones in a row, all but the last
>will change to second tone.  Tone sandhi can be much
>more complicated.
[...]

In fact, they are sometimes more complicated in Mandarin, too.
Consider _yi_ 'one' or _ba_ 'eight'.

Interestingly, both had originally the "ru" tone, and the latter
is known to have very irregular reflexation in Mandarin -  a result
of some analogical levelling of sandhi, varying for different morphemes?


Basilius