Re: tonal languages

Douglas Koller, Latin & French scripsit:
>
> John writes:
>
> >Oh, OK, no problem.  Sounds like you're numbering the four yin tones 1-4
> >and the yang tones 5-8, with 6 (my 4) merged with 2 (my 3).
>
> Yes, that's right.
Good.

> For Shanghainese, I found:
>
> 1 yin ping (quelle surprise)
> 2 yin qu
> 3 yang qu
> 4 yin ru (glottal stop)
> 5 yang ru (glottal stop)
Yes, I was mistaken to think that the ping tone was split.  What's really
happened here is that yang ping has merged with yang qu, whereas the unsplit
shang tone has merged with yin qu.  An interesting property of the yang qu tone
is that all syllables with breathy voice ("voiced aspirated stops") have
this tone, though not vice versa.

> I made something similar (though I'm a little confused by the
> high/low terms)
I was thinking in Cantonese terms here.  For high read yin, for low read yang.

> and I think I squeezed Hakka into the mix. I saw it
> recently as I was cleaning out my den. If it resurfaces, I'll share.
The Hakka story AFAICT is that ping and ru are split, shang and qu are not.

--
"In my last lifetime,                           John Cowan
I believed in reincarnation;                    http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
in this lifetime,                               jcowan@reutershealth.com
I don't."  --Thiagi                             http://www.reutershealth.com

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