Re: THEORY: Reduction of final consonants

From: "David J. Peterson" <dedalvs@...>

> I know absolutely nothing about it, but Mandarin does.  Words
> can only end in /n/ or /N/ in Mandarin, whereas in nearby
> Cantonese, you can have a number of coda consonants.  I'm
> sure someone on the list can explain how the mother language
> apparently had several coda consonants, and how most of
> them went the way of the dodo in Mandarin.
I'll weigh in, FWIW. I have resources on Middle Chinese but forgedda'boudit.
Cantonese has -n, -ng, -p, -t, -k (I guess as the most conservative on the
spectrum) (can't speak to Hakka just now, though I have resources). Minnan
(Taiwanese for me) keeps the final p,t,k thing going on in some cases, else
reduced to a glottal stop (if that's systematic (which it well may be) I
haven't found it yet). Wu (Shanghainese for me) reduces all final p,t,k to a
glottal stop (My dictionary gives the "er2" of "er2qie3" ("moreover") as "el"
in Shanghai, but I never heard it that way; Beijing influence?) Without
looking, I'm thinking they're all "yang" tones? Mandarin, of course, dropped
these finals altogether, which is why I think places like fourth tone shi4 (and
I've said this before) are dumping grounds for what would be distinctly
different sounds in other dialects. Let us also remember that Beijing Mandarin
also has final "-r", which seems to have diminutive and disambiguating functio!
 ns akin
 to "-zi" (this may actually be *word* final, not syllable final) -- "one
o'clock can be "yi1diar3", but I don't think "1:30" can be "yi1diar3bar4" (and
if it can, *I* think it's *way* over the top), but "yi1dian3bar4"; "half hour",
"bar4ge xiao3shi2" (not loving it, sounds like you're trying too hard to be a
little *too* Beijing) over "ban4ge xiao3shi2; "war2war", "have a good time"
certainly exists, but that's reduplication so that doesn't count). Lastly,
Shanghainese conflates final /n/ and /N/ as /N/.

Eugene, care to opine?

Kou