Modern Cantonese Phonology 9783110823707, 9783110148930

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Modern Cantonese Phonology

W DE G

Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 102

Editor

Werner Winter

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Modern Cantonese Phonology

by

Robert S. Bauer Paul K. Benedict

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

1997

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress

Cataloging-in-Publication-Data

Bauer, Robert S. Modern Cantonese phonology / by Robert S. Bauer, Paul K. Benedict. p. cm. - (Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs ; 102) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 3-11-014893-5 (alk. paper) 1. Cantonese dialects - Phonology. 2. Chinese language — Modern Chinese, 1919- Phonology. I. Benedict, Paul Κ. II. Title. III. Series. PL1739.B38 1997 495.1'7-dc21 97-8574 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek -

Cataloging-in-Publication-Data

Bauer, Robert S.: Modern Cantonese phonology / by Robert S. Bauer ; Paul K. Benedict. - Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1997 (Trends in linguistics : Studies and monographs ; 102) ISBN 3-11-014893-5

© Copyright 1997 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printing: Arthur Collignon GmbH, Berlin. Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

We dedicate this book to the memory of Chao Yuanren

τ£

and Seren Christian Egerod J? ^

Acknowledgments

In writing this book I have been helped, both directly and indirectly, by a number of friends and colleagues, and I take this opportunity to thank each of them. At center stage stands Paul Benedict who first proposed this writing project back in 1988; as I have explained in my Preface, he is the stimulus behind this book — his early sketch of Cantonese phonology has been the seed from which this larger work has sprouted, and I am most grateful to him for getting me started. To two of the 20th century's most inspiring scholars of Cantonese, Y. R. Chao and Serai Egerod, I acknowledge my intellectual debt. Chao had retired years earlier after I arrived at Berkeley in the early 1970's but he still got around, and I treasure my memories of the few times I met him from all those years ago. Each time I read Cantonese Primer I see him in my mind's eye and hear his voice. In 1994 Seren and I were colleagues at the Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development at Mahidol University, Salaya, Thailand. In addition to auditing his course on Thai and Chinese dialectology, I had lunch with him several times a week over the semester of his visit; with marvelous humor and wit he shared with me the wealth of his academic and personal experiences accumulated from his travels around the world. I especially enjoyed hearing his observations of Cantonese based on his own study in Guangzhou in 1949-50. Before leaving Thailand to return to Denmark in late September 1994 Seren read and commented on an early version of Chapters 1 and 3. To the following people I express my gratitude for assisting me in various ways: W. L. Ballard and Michael Carr in Japan and Lance Eccles in Australia for correcting errors in and commenting on very early drafts of the ms.; Morton Belcher in Taiwan for sending books and photocopied materials and searching CD-ROMs for references; my brother Bill in California and his wife's brother, Jeff Esmond in Hawaii, for finding me a map of China in an editable format; my former colleague Kingsley Bolton at the Hong Kong University for providing me with the Hong Kong census volume and reprints

vi

Acknowledgments

of his publications on Cantonese (co-authored with Chris Hutton); my former Berkeley classmate Grace Wiersma in Hong Kong for her recommendation on Chinese software; my former colleagues at the Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development, Mahidol University, particularly Profs. Suwilai Premsrirat and Chris Court, for their warm camaraderie and stimulating exchanges on the phonetics of Southeast Asian languages from which my research and writing have very much benefited; and my colleagues in the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, for sharing with me their knowledge of Cantonese and letting me know how this book can contribute to their courses on Cantonese linguistics. My most heartfelt thanks I extend to my Cantonese-speaking consultants: Chen Huiying, Cheung Hiw-tong, Samuel H-n. Cheung, Samuel P-m. Cheung, William Chow, Ben Lau, Lydia So, To Shuk-Wa, Mak Wan, Blackie Wong, Miss Yip, and Goldie all generously gave me their time and patiently spoke into my microphone to record my Cantonese wordlists and texts. Finally, I happily thank Phumg whose unfailing help and good-natured companionship made it so much easier to bear the solitary burden of writing this book my last year in Thailand. Robert S. Bauer Hong Kong March 11, 1997

Foreword

In the early 1940s the attention of the world was turned, for the first time, towards Southeast Asia. Academic America had known about this region for years, to be sure, but had pursued towards it a policy of disdainful neglect, while offialdom had barely discovered the region. The few SEA specialists of the era often found themselves in odd situations, e.g., I spent considerable time convincing authorities that, despite the lack of even a single English source, Vietnamese had to be looked upon as a key language resource in the area. The American Council of Learned Societies had the good sense to step into this breach, recruiting Mary Haas to work on Thai (Siamese), while I became a "roving scholar", so to speak, devoting my attention to Burmese, Vietnamese, Cantonese, et al (see the several tonal analyses in my 1948 article, 'Tonal systems in Southeast Asia", Journal of the American Oriental Society, 68:184-191). I was fortunate in locating a gifted informant for Cantonese, Mr. Wu King-lui, and with his help was able to put together, primarily for non-specialists, a Cantonese phonology before I left ACLS to join the Army Service Forces. My interest in Southeast Asia continued but it was many years before I returned to research in the field. I soon learned that Cantonese had undergone some significant changes, with more on the way, and I resolved to postpone any publication of my work pending an opportunity to carry out further research on the language, preferably in China and/or Hong Kong. The opportunity did not come my way, alas, but Bob Bauer did. I was impressed by his first-hand knowledge of Cantonese and his attention to socio-cultural aspects and came to realize that my goal of obtaining a diachronic view of the language could be realized if I could persuade him to collaborate with me on a publication. I am happy to report that he did agree to this joint effort, with the result that a diachronic phonology of Cantonese covering the last half-century has now become a reality. I have Wu King-lui to thank for a happy beginning to this story and Bob Bauer to thank for an even happier ending. Paul K. Benedict Ormond Beach, Florida USA July 16, 1991

Preface

The writing of this book has had its own special history of how it got started, written, and published. In October 1988 during the 21st Sino-Tibetan Linguistics Conference held at Lund University in Sweden Paul Benedict came up to me and put into my hands a tattered, yellowed sheaf of papers and suggested I take a look at it to see if it had any historical value. If I decided it did, then we should publish it together as joint-authors. What he had given me was a type-written manuscript of about 60 pages in which he sketched out Cantonese phonology; he had written the ms. in 1941-42 for the American Council of Learned Societies but for some unknown reason never published it. His descriptive study was based on material collected from a Guangzhou (Sai-kwan district) speaker studying in America at the time. This manuscript had lain moidering in Paul's desk drawer for over 40 years when he decided it was time to do something with it and passed it over to me. After the conference I returned to Hong Kong where I was teaching and read through his manuscript. I quickly realized that it contained much interesting and valuable material which could form the basis for a book on Cantonese phonology, and I began word-processing it with my computer and software (which in retrospect now seem incredibly primitive!). To make a long story short, over the past eight years I have interspersed writing this book with various other academic tasks and transcontinental relocations. Although I started out with Paul's manuscript as the basis, I have ended up with an almost completely new book (which includes much of his original material). With the completion of the book I now feel both a physical and psychological sense of completeness to the whole undertaking itself. I began writing in Hong Kong, moved to Australia where I lived for three and a half years, and then to Thailand where I spent two and half years writing and preparing the camera-ready copy; I now find myself back in Hong Kong finishing up the few remaining parts of the manuscript. Over the years my ideas about how to revise Paul's original work have changed completely. In the beginning I had thought I could simply add annotations in the form of supplementary material and comments. But the impracticality of this idea quickly became apparent. While Paul's approach was based on many examples from his speaker, his analysis struck me as far

χ

Preface

too brief and incomplete. There was just so much more that needed to be said about modem Cantonese phonology — not the least were variations and changes in consonants, rimes, and tones that had developed in the language over the past 50 years and were the subject of some of my own publications. At the beginning of 1990 I moved to Australia and over a period of two years worked closely with a Cantonese speaker from Guangzhou. I checked the material from Paul's manuscript with this speaker and also recorded additional data from him. Thai over the next year or so I wrote the draft of a manuscript which I called Introduction to Cantonese Phonology, but I was not thoroughly satisfied with what I had written and so regarded my task as still unfinished. I spent the first half of 1993 in Hong Kong on a sabbatical leave and took the opportunity to check my Guangzhou material with Hong Kong and Macao speakers. During this time I was also searching for and trying out different lands of computer software that were compatible and at the same time capable of producing English, IPA symbols, and Chinese characters all in the same document. I also needed Chinese software with a font editor for creating Cantonese characters. Surmounting the software problem seemed to be a major task in itself, but later that year with the help of my former Berkeley classmate Grace Wiersma, I discovered Chinese software that satisfied all my requirements. In early 1994 I moved to Thailand to take up the post of visiting professor; for the first time since I had started writing the book, I found ample time to devote to my writing and research on Cantonese phonology and to think through the kind of book I wanted to write. I might add that in retrospect Thailand proved to be the precisely appropriate place for me to put this book together. It was also in Thailand that I encountered for the first time the computerized spectrographic program WDNTCECIL {Computerized Extraction of Components of Intonation in Language for Windows); it proved to be such an invaluable and convalient research tool for measuring fundamental frequency that I have made extensive use of it in my analysis of Cantonese tone contours in Chapter 2. A major turning point came in October 1994 at the 27th Sino-Tibetan Linguistics Conference in Paris where Paul and I crossed paths with Werner Winter of Mouton de Gruyter. We told him about our Cantonese book probject, and he expressed his interest in publishing the manuscript. Inspired with the possibility of seeing the book in print some day, I returned to Thailand and rewrote Chapters 1 and 2 and sent them to Werner. He

Preface xi apparently liked what he read and agreed to publish the book from a cameraready copy. Since Paul left it up to me to do what I wanted with his original manuscript, the responsibility for all the shortcomings and errors in this description of modern Cantonese phonology I alone must bear.

Why the need for a book on modern Cantonese phonology? One objective of this book is to raise the international profile of Cantonese by giving the language the attention it deserves. The economic boom in southeast China has conferred on both the region and by extension its language an unprecedented importance. Bold market-oriented reforms have catapulted China to the rank of the world's third-largest economy. Economic growth in the region has been nothing less than phenomenal. As a result, people from all over China and the world have been converging on Guangdong Province and Hong Kong — the new Eldorado of Southeast Asia — in search of better economic opportunities. At the same time, the region's booming economy has lured entrepreneurs from Asian and Western countries eager to reap profits from their investments in joint ventures. The region's burgeoning wealth has elevated the status of its language, and Cantonese has become so "hot" that it challenges both the prestige and practicality of Mandarin. Many people have been finding it advantageous to learn to speak Cantonese — from Filipina amahs in Hong Kong to foreign factory-managers in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. At the same time, one issue concentrated the world's attention on the region more than any other — Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. As Hong Kong ranks among the world's major financial and commercial colters, the question foremost in the minds of many people is how will this center of capitalism with its population of just over six million residents fere under Chinese communist control? International interest in Hong Kong's future has provided an invaluable opportunity to focus attention on the Cantonese-speaking community and its language. Indeed, the international news media (Gargan 1996: A4) has recognized that sociopolitical differences between Hong Kong and China are mirrored in their linguistic differences as well. Cantonese has become an increasingly important language on the world stage over the past two decades, but this development has not spurred any major publications on Cantonese phonology in this time. In the early 1970's

xii

Preface

two fine studies were published for the linguist, viz., Diana Kao's Structure of the Syllable in Cantonese (1971) and Anne Yue-Hashimoto's Studies in Yue Dialects 1: Phonology of Cantonese (1972); both of these books have long been out of print and unavailable except in university libraries.

Intended audience for this book The potential audience for a book about modern Cantonese phonology is most certainly diverse, yet readers most likely share one thing in common — they want clear and accurate answers to questions about the Cantonese phonological system. Thus, the readership for this study includes beginning students of Cantonese, Cantonese native-speakers, teachers of English to Cantonese-speaking students, professional linguists, and laymen curious about one of Southeast Asia's major languages. All these people have particular needs for a practical description of Cantonese phonology. This study is intended to be a comprehensive account which can satisfy both the student and the specialist.

Aim and organization of this book Taking as its basis the phonetic contrasts between words and syllables, this analysis of modern Cantonese phonology describes the consonants, vowels, and tones of the contemporary language and examines the structure of the Cantonese syllable and the types of changes that can occur to syllables when they are strung together in words and phrases. However, the term "modem" is deliberately interpreted in its broad sense to cover not only the present-day period but also the past fifty-odd years; this has provided me with the opportunity to describe a number of interesting and important phonetic changes that have been occurring in Cantonese since at least the early 1940's. With much humility have I approached the task of writing this descriptive phonology of Cantonese. I cannot pretend that I have said everything there is to say or that my description is better in every aspect than some other. There really is no aid to the task. To realize this all we need do is call to mind the sobering observations of Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996:2): "we do not have a complete knowledge of the phonetic structure of any language . . .

Preface xiii

languages are always evolving . . . there can never be a final description of the sounds of any one language. The next generation of speakers will always speak a little differentlyfromtheir predecessors . . . " This study is not based on any particular linguistic theory, and it makes no attempt to develop a new theory of phonology. Aware that the jargon of linguistics can overwhelm the non-linguist, I have tried to use linguistic terms as a means to make the phonetic description clear, precise, and accurate. Technical terms are explained in the text and have been collected and defined with Cantonese examples in Appendix 6, Glossary of linguistic terms. This book is divided into four main parts: Chapter 1 describes Cantonese consonants, vowels, and rimes; Chapter 2 lays out the Cantonese tone system, compares the tone contours, and examines closely the so-called pim-jvm ^ 'changed tones'; Chapter 3 explains the relationship between syllables and words and describes several lexical categories illustrating Cantonese sound symbolism (onmatopoeic words, auspicious riming words, taboo words); this chapter also includes an extensive account of the phonetic borrowing of English words into Cantonese; the chaper concludes with an analysis of the Cantonese syllabary. In my Postscript I speculate on possible future developments in Cantonese in the next century. Benedict's original 1942 manuscript was based mainly on material he had elicited from Mr. Wu King-lui JU$ jjfc, a student in the School of Architecture of Yale University. Mr. Wu, who had been living in America since 1937, was a native of the district of Sai-kwan I f |ffj located in the western section of Guangzhou. According to Chao (1947 18), the Sai-kwan pronunciation has been regarded as the prestige form of Cantonese. Although the Cantonese spoken in the provincial capital Guangzhou and in nearby Hong Kong are generally considered to be the same language, nonetheless, differences exist in the two varieties. For instance, Guangzhou Cantonese is somewhat more conservative by maintaining the distinction between the High Falling and High Level pi:n-j§m tone contours; Benedict had carefully described this difference and noted the latter was used for morphological purposes (to distinguish nouns from corresponding verbs with High Falling tone). On the other hand, most Hong Kong speakers seem to have lost this distinction, yet a few still keep the two tones apart, while others have High Falling tone in certain syntactic environments or in free variation with High Level. Lexical usage also differs to some extent between the two varieties;

xiv

Preface

some words regarded as feudalistic by the communists have been discarded in Guangzhou, but some of these items have remained in use in Hong Kong. A comparison of Benedict's 1942 account with the contemporary language turns up interesting differences; phonetic variation he had noted, e.g., between nasal syllables m and y and initials n- and 1-, have now become advanced sound changes for some sections of the Guangzhou and Hong Kong speech communities. Benedict made no mention of the delabialization of labialized velars before o:, and this implies the process had begun after he had written up his study; at any rate, it is now a completed sound change for a large portion of the Hong Kong speech community. In addition to the change of High Falling tone to High Level in Hong Kong, one other tone has changed in both Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Both Benedict and Chao described the High Rising tone with a mid to high rising contour (135 in Chao's tone-letter notation), but it is now identical to the High Rising pim-jvm with a mid-low to high rising contour (425). In order to expand the base of this descriptive Cantonese phonology I consulted with a dozen speakers between 1991 and 1996; three of the speakers were from Guangzhou, eight were from Hong Kong, and one was originally from Macao. Additional material from various published and unpublished sources has been included to complement the phonological and lexical data, and these sources have been listed in the References. While I have tried my best to eliminate errors of analysis and typing in this ms., I have not caught all of them and so request my readers bring them to my attention. Robert S. Bauer Hong Kong February 20, 1997

Contents

Acknowledgments Foreword by Paul K. Benedict Preface by Robert S. Bauer Contents List of abbreviations List of maps and figures List of tables Introduction, the Cantonese language

ν vii ix xv xvii xix xxiii xxxi

Chapter 1, Cantonese consonants and vowels 1.0 Introduction to articulatory phonetics 1.1 Initial and final consonants 1.2 Vowels 1.3 Cantonese rimes 1.4 Alternation of homorganic final consonants: -ml-p, -nl-t, -ql-k 1.5 Literary and colloquial rimes with short and long vowels 1.6 Conclusion to Chapter 1

1 1 16 33 48 92 94 107

Chapter 2, Cantonese tones 2.0 Introduction to tone 2.1 Auditory description of Cantonese tone contours 2.2 Cantonese tone categories 2.3 Acoustic analysis of Cantonese tone contours 2.4 F0 displays of Cantonese tone contours 2.5 Chao tone letters and F0 values 2.6 Differences in descriptions of Cantonese tone contours 2.7 Macao tone contours 2.8 Cantonese lexical tone and sentence intonation 2.9 Historical development of Cantonese tone categories 2.10 Cantonese tone sandhi 2.11 Cantonese pim-jmn fH ^ 'changed tones' 2.12 Conclusion to Chapter 2 Figure 2.3, F0 displays of Cantonese tone contours

109 109 114 118 123 131 143 143 145 148 154 162 165 248 250

xvi Contents

Chapter 3, Cantonese syllables and words 3.0 Introduction 3.1 Cantonese morphology 3.2 Cantonese sound symbolism and meaning 3.3 The Expanding and contracting Cantonese syllable 3.4 The Expanding and contracting Cantonese syllabary 3 .5 English loanwords in Cantonese 3.6 Cantonese syllabary 3.7 Conclusion to Chapter 3

279 279 281 296 314 326 347 406 427

Postscript, Cantonese in the 21st century Notes to Chapter 1 Notes to Chapter 2 Notes to Chapter 3 References Appendix 1, Comparative table of Cantonese romanization systems Appendix 2, Tone contour displays for second group of Cantonese speakers Appendix 3, Cantonese syllabary Appendix 4.1, Colloquial Cantonese morphosyllables and morphosyllables used in transliterating English loanwords Appendix 4.2, Colloquial and loanword morphosyllables with consonant clusters with -1Appendix 5, Cantonese-English pi:n-jfm ^ ^e glossary Appendix 6, Glossary of linguistic terms Author index Language and subject index

429 435 441 444 449 471 476 486 488 497 499 539 551 555

List of abbreviations

clsfr. coll des govt. GZ HK lit part. sth. var. voc

classifier colloquial designative government Guangzhou Hong Kong literary particle something variant vocative

List of maps and figures

Map 1. China's seven major Chinese dialect families distributed by province.

xlvi

Map 2. Yue dialect areas of southeast China (from Table 12).

xlvii

Figure 1.1 Human vocal tract.

2

Figure 1.2 Structure of the Cantonese syllable.

9

Figure 1.3 Cantonese vowel allophones by tongue height and lip position.

47

Figure 1.4 Changes in vowel quality of Cantonese diphthongs.

58

Figure 2.1 Five divisions of the speaker's pitch range.

112

Figure 2.2 Tone contours: High Falling 53, Mid-Low Level 22, High Rising 25.

113

Figure 2.3 Tone contours on open syllable ji: for Speaker A-HKM, a 28-year-old male born and raised in Hong Kong.

250

Figure 2.4 Tone contours for three tone categories associated with stopped syllables for Speaker A-HKM.

251

Figure 2.5 Contours for High Level and High Rising pi:n-ji?m on open syllable ji: for Speaker A-HKM.

251

Figure 2.6 Tone contours on open syllable ji: for Speaker B-HKM, a 49-year-old male who was bom in China and raised in Hong Kong from age of three.

252

Figure 2.7 Tone contours for three tone categories associated with stopped syllables for Speaker B-HKM.

253

Figure 2.8 Contours for High Level and High Rising pim-jvm on open syllable ji: for Speaker B-HKM.

253

Figure 2.9 Tone contours on open syllable ji: for Speaker C-GZM, a 43-year-old male born and raised in Guangzhou.

254

Figure 2.10 Tone contours for three tone categories associated with stopped syllables for Speaker C-GZM.

255

Figure 2.11 Contours for High Level and High Rising pixi-jvm on open syllable ji: for Speaker C-GZM.

255

Figure 2.12 Tone contours on open syllable ji: for Speaker D-HKF, a 36-year-old female born and raised in Hong Kong.

256

Figure 2.13 Tone contours for three tone categories associated with stopped syllables for Speaker D-HKF.

257

xx

List of maps and figures

Figure 2.13 Tone contours for three tone categories associated with stopped syllables for Speaker D-HKF.

257

Figure 2.14 Contours for High Level and High Rising pi:n-jvm on open syllable ji: for Speaker D-HKF.

257

Figure 2.15 Tone contours on open syllable ji: for Speaker E-HKF, a 43-year-old female born and raised in Hong Kong.

258

Figure 2.16 Tone contours for three tone categories associated with stopped syllables for Speaker E-HKF.

259

Figure 2.17 Contours for High Level and High Rising pim-jvm on open syllable ji: for Speaker E-HKF.

259

Figure 2.18 Tone contours on open syllable ji: for Speaker F-GZF, a female of about 65-years of age from Guangzhou.

260

Figure 2.19 Tone contours for three tone categories associated with stopped syllables for Speaker F-GZF.

261

Figure 2.20 Contours for High Level and High Rising pim-jvm on open syllable ji: for Speaker F-GZF.

261

Figure 2.21 Tone contours on open syllable ji: for Speaker G-MCM, a 32-year-old male born and raised in Macao and now living in Hong Kong.

262

Figure 2.22 Tone contours for three tone categories associated with stopped syllables for Speaker G-MCM.

263

Figure 2.23 Contours for High Level and High Rising pi:n-jvm on open syllable ji: for Speaker G-MCM.

263

Figure 2.24 Speaker C-GZM reads declarative statement with neutral expression and falling intonation.

264

Figure 2.25 Speaker A-HKM reads declarative statement with neutral expression and falling intonation.

264

Figure 2.26 Speaker C-GZM reads imperative sentence with neutral expression and falling intonation that lower tone contour of last word.

265

Figure 2.27 Speaker A-HKM says imperative statement as if directly addressing Number Two servant (with change in wording of original sentence).

265

Figure 2.28 Speaker B-HKM reads declarative statement with falling intonation. 266 Figure 2.29 Speaker B-HKM reads declarative statement with neutral expression and falling intonation. Figure 2.30 Speaker E-HKF reads declarative statement with falling intonation.

266 267

List of maps and figures

Figure 2.31 Speaker F-GZF reads declarative statement with falling intonation.

267

Figure 2.32 Speaker I-GZM, about 35-years of age and born and raised in Guangzhou, says kam flQ '(clsfr.)' with its regular High Falling tone in (1) but sandhis it to High Level under influence of following High Falling tone in (2). 268 Figure 2.33 Speaker I-GZM sandhis High Falling tone of pä:w

'guarantee'

and fi: § 'cure' to High Level tone under influence of following High Falling tone (1) and High Level tone (2).

268

Figure 2.34 Speaker I-GZM says se:rj Sf 'sound' with its regular High Falling tone in two onomatopoeic expressions.

269

Figure 2.35 Speaker I-GZM sandhis High Falling tone of si.y

'sound' to High

Level tone under influence of following High Falling tone of fej ^ 'fly'.

269

Figure 2.36 Speaker B-HKM, who distinguishes between High Falling and High Level tones, uses regular High Falling tone on fi: in

fi:-hodc

Figure 2.37 Speaker B-HKM sandhis High Falling tone offi:

'medicine'. 270

to High Level

tone under influence of following High Level pim-jvm of SBtj° in j7:-svjf

'medical doctor".

270

Figure 2.38 Speaker A-HKM, who lacks High Falling tone, uses High Level tone on jT: in fi:-hSüc ® ^ 'medicine'.

271

Figure 2.39 Speaker A-HKM uses High Level tone on both morphosyllables of fi:-SBij ® ife 'medical doctor* which is not the result of either tone sandhi or High Level pi:n-jvm.

271

Figure 2.40 Speaker H-HKM, a 36-year-old male born and raised in Hong Kong, changes Mid Level tone to High Rising pi:n-jem in (la, lb).

272

Figure 2.41 Speaker K-HKM, a 28-year-old male born and raised in Hong Kong, derives nouns (lb, 2b) from verbs (la, 2a) with High Risingpim-jvm., Figure 2.42 Speaker K-HKM marks verb tsow

272

'do' for perfective aspect with

-tso: n£ in (la); he achieves same effect by changing Mid-Low Level tone on verb to High Rising pim-jvm in (lb).

273

Figure 2.43 Speaker K-HKM uses regular Mid-Low Falling tone on both stative verbs in reduplicated stative verb phrase in (la); he marks second stative verb with High R i s i n g p i m - j f m in (lb).

273

Figure 2.44 Speaker D-HKF uses Mid-Low Falling and Mid-Low Rising tones on reduplicated dead syllables of onomatopoeic phrase in (la, lb); for comparison she uses High Rising ρί.τι-jfm on dead syllable in (2).

274

xxii

List of maps and figures

Figure 2.45 Speaker D-HKF uses Mid-Low Falling tone onfirstreduplicated dead syllable of onomatopoeic phrase in (la) but regular Mid-Low Stopped tone on first dead syllable in (lb).

274

Figure 2.46 Speaker C-GZM, who distinguishes between High Falling and High Level tones, uses High Falling tone contour on verb pow Figure 2.47 Speaker C-GZM derives noun fa.n-pow" fjst

'cook in pot'.

'rice cooker with 275

High Level pi:n-jvm. Figure 2.48 Speaker F-GZF says verb pow

275

1

'cook in pot' with High Falling

tone (la, lb) and derives noun with High Level pi:n-jvm (2a, 2b).

276

Figure 2.49 Speaker F-GZF says stative verb hce:g %f 'fragrant' with High Falling tone in (la, lb) and derives noun with High Level pi:n-jvm in (2).

276

Figure 2.50 Speaker A-HKM uses his regular High Level tone contour on verb pöw

'to cook in pot'.

277

Figure 2.51 Speaker A-HKM uses his regular High Level tone contour on pöw in fam-pöw | ' r i c e cooker*.

277

Figure 3.1 Structural components of the Cantonese syllable.

314

Figure 3.2 Cantonese syllable canon.

316

Figure 3.3 Speaker D-HKF uses High Level tone on sT: Μ in citation form of jT:-sT: ig; Jjg. 'idea' in (1); in (2) she uses High Falling tone when reading sentence in which this word occurs with meaning 'interesting1 at aid of sentence.

343

Figure 3.4 Speaker D-HKF uses High Level tone in citation forms of (1) säm 'clothes' and (2) sa:m ΞΞ. 'three'; she uses High Falling tone on 'three' which is followed in phrase (3) tßit:-wü:j-sä:m fjnJ@|Z=i 'word three' which is followed by pause when enumerating third item in a series. 343 Figure 3.5 Speaker D-HKF uses High Falling tone on adverb s):n 5fc 'first'. Figure 3.6 Speaker H-HKM uses High Level tone on adverb sTxi 'first'. Figure 3.7 Speaker D-HKF uses High Falling tone on adverb thvm 'even'.

344 344 345

Figure 3.8 Speaker H-HKM uses Higji Level tone on adverb thr.m 'even'. 345 Figure 3.9 Speaker K-HKM uses High Level and High Falling tones in free variation on nouns which typically carry High Level tone in Hong Kong Cantonese. 346 Figure 3.10 Speaker K-HKM uses High Level and High Falling tones in free variation on both verb and corresponding noun derived from it. 346

List of tables

Page: Table I.1 Classification of Chinese dialect families by region with numbers of speakers and distribution by province.

xxxv

Table 1.2 Classification of Yue dialects by region and district.

xxxviii

Table 1.1 Cantonese tones and their corresponding tone symbols.

12

Table 1.2 Types of Cantonese rimes.

13

Table 1.3 Types of Cantonese open syllables. Table 1.4 Types of Cantonese closed syllables.

14 14

Table 1.5 Average durations of types of Cantonese syllables (Kao 1971:49).

15

Table 1.6 Cantonese initial consonants.

17

Table 1.7 Lexical items contrasting unaspirated and aspirated stop initial consonants p-fph-, t-/th-, kVkh-.

19

Table 1.8 Lexical items contrasting unaspirated and aspirated labialized-velar stop initial consonants kw- and khw-.

20

Table 1.9 Lexical items contrasting labialized-velars kw- and khw- with plain velars k- and kh- before back round vowel -o:.

21

Table 1.10 Lexical items with unreleased stop final consonants -p, -t, -k.

23

Table 1.11 Lexical items with bilabial, dental, and velar nasal initial and final consonants m, n, rj.

24

Table 1.12 Lexical items with bilabial and velar nasal syllabic consonants m, IJ.

26

Table 1.13 Lexical items with initial fricative consonants f-, s-, /-, h-.

29

Table 1.14 Lexical items with non-palatalized affricate initial consonants ts-ltshand palatalized affricate initial consonants tf-jtjh- contrasting in aspiration.

30

Table 1.15 Lexical items with labial, lateral, and palatal approximant initial consonants w-, I-, and j-.

31

Table 1.16 Average duration of long vowels in open syllables for two speakers.

35

Table 1.17 Average duration of long and short vowels in diphthongs.

35

Table 1.18 Average duration of long and short vowels followed by nasal

finals.

36

Table 1.19 Average duration of long vowels + stop

finals.

37

Table 1.20 Average duration of short vowels + stop

finals.

37

Table 1.21 Average duration of vowels in five types of rimes (from Kao 1971:49). 38

xxiv

List of tables

Table 1.22 Average duration of vowels in five types of rimes (from Li 1985:31).

38

Table 1.23 Cantonese vowels (based on Cheung H-n. 1972:3).

40

Table 1.24 51 Cantonese rimes (based on Cheung H-n. 1972:3).

40

Table 1.25 Complementary distribution of vowels before final consonants.

41

Table 1.26 Cantonese vowel phonemes and allophones (Cheung H-n. 1972:3).

42

Table 1.27 Cantonese vowel phonemes and their allophones (Benedict 1942:4-5).

44

Table 1.28 Romanization of Cantonese vowel phonemes and allophones.

48

Table 1.29 56 Cantonese rimes.

49

Table 1.30 Lexical items with nuclear vowel -/'/ as rime.

52

Table 1.31 Lexical items with nuclear vowel -ε: as

rime.

Table 1.32 Lexical items with nuclear vowel -a: as rime. Table 1.33 Lexical items with nuclear vowel -u: as

53 53

rime.

54

Table 1.34 Lexical items with nuclear vowel -y: as rime.

55

Table 1.35 Lexical items with nuclear vowel -a: as rime.

56

Table 1.36 Lexical items with nuclear vowel -ω: as rime.

56

Table 1.37 Cantonese vowels and diphthongs.

58

Table 1.38 Lexical items with diphthong -i:w as rime.

59

Table 1.39 Lexical items with diphthong -ej as rime.

60

Table 1.40 Lexical items with diphthong -εινas rime.

61

Table 1.41 Lexical items with diphthong -vj as rime.

62

Table 1.42 Lexical items with diphthong -a:j as rime.

62

Table 1.43 Lexical items with diphthong -vw as rime.

63

Table 1.44 Lexical items with diphthong -a:w as rime.

63

Table 1.45 Lexical items with diphthong -u:j as rime.

64

Table 1.46 Lexical items with diphthong -o:j as

rime.

64

Table 1.47 Lexical items with diphthong -ow as rime.

65

Table 1.48 Lexical items with diphthong -ey as rime.

66

Table 1.49 Rimes with final homorganic consonants -m, -p, -n, -t, -η, -k.

68

Table 1.50 Lexical items with rime -i:m.

69

Table 1.51 Lexical items with rime -ίφ.

69

Table 1.52 Lexical items with rime -e:m.

70

Table 1.53 Lexical items with rime -εφ.

71

Table 1.54 Lexical items with rime -em.

72

Table 1.55 Lexical items with rime -Bp.

72

List of tables

xxv

Table 1.56 Lexical items with rime -am.

73

Table 1.57 Lexical items with rime -a:p.

73

Table 1.58 Lexical items with rime -im.

74

Table 1.59 Lexical items with rime -i:t

75

Table 1.60 Lexical items with rime -y:n.

75

Table 1.61 Lexical items with rime -y:t

76

Table 1.62 Lexical items with rime -ε:η.

76

Table 1.63 Lexical items with rime -f.l

77

Table 1.64 Lexical items with rime -en.

78

Table 1.65 Lexical items with rime -et

78

Table 1.66 Lexical items with rime -ae:t (nondistinctive, phonetic variant of -of). 79 Table 1.67 Lexical items with rime -υη.

79

Table 1.68 Lexical Items with rime -BL

80

Table 1.69 Lexical items with rime -a:n.

80

Table 1.70 Lexical Items with Rime -a:t

81

Table 1.71 Lexical items with rime -u:n.

81

Table 1.72 Lexical items with rime -u:t

82

Table 1.73 Contrast of rimes -um / -ym and -u:t / -y:t after velar initials.

82

Table 1.74 Lexical items with rime -am.

83

Table 1.75 Lexical items with rime -o:L

84

Table 1.76 Lexical items with rime -et).

85

Table 1.77 Lexical items with rime -ek.

85

Table 1.78 Lexical items with rime -e:rj.

86

Table 1.79 Lexical items with rime -e:k.

87

Table 1.80 Lexical items with rime -aenj.

87

Table 1.81 Lexical items with rime -oeJc.

88

Table 1.82 Lexical items with rime -BTJ.

88

Table 1.83 Lexical items with rime -vk.

89

Table 1.84 Lexical items with rime -a:rj.

90

Table 1.85 Lexical items with rime -adc.

90

Table 1.86 Lexical items with rime -or/.

91

Table 1.87 Lexical items with rime -ok.

91

Table 1.88 Lexical items with rime -o:ij.

92

Table 1.89 Lexical items with rime -oJc.

92

xxvi

List of tables

Table 1.90 Paired lexical items with alternating homorganic nasal and stop finals.

94

Table 1.91 Lexical items with alternation between rimes -erj and -anj.

97

Table 1.92 Lexical items with alternation between rimes -ek and -aJc.

99

Table 1.93 Lexical items only listed with colloquial rime -ε:η (from former literary -erj) in Yu (1982).

100

Table 1.94 Lexical items only listed with colloquial rime -eJc (from former literary -ek) in Yu (1982).

101

Table 1.95 Colloquial lexical items pronounced only with rimes -er) and -ek.

102

Table 1.96 Colloquial lexical items pronounced only with rimes -ε:η and -εύί.

102

Table 1.97 Lexical items with variation between rimes -eg and -ey.

104

Table 1.98 Lexical items with variation between rimes -ek and -εύί.

107

Table 2.1 Cantonese registers, tone categories, and Chao tone letters.

118

Table 2.2 Tone categories, tone letters, and tone symbols.

119

Table 2.3 Tone categories of modem Cantonese and Ancient Chinese.

122

Table 2.4 Traditional Chinese names of modern Cantonese tone categories.

122

Table 2.5 Lexical items contrasting seven tones on open syllable ji:.

125

Table 2.6 Lexical items contrasting tone contours on dead syllables.

126

Table 2.7 Lexical items with two pim-jvm 'changed tones'.

126

Table 2.8 F0 values of nine Cantonese tone contours on live syllable ji: for six speakers from Hong Kong and Guangzhou.

130

Table 2.9 Comparison of Mid-Low Falling peaks (or onsets) with endpoints.

133

Table 2.10 Peaks and endpoints for High Falling and High Rising tone contours.

134

Table 2.11 Comparison of calculated midpoint between Mid Level onset and Mid-Low Falling endpoint with Mid-Low Rising dip. Table 2.12 Contour points for High Rising, Mid-Low Falling, Mid-Low Rising.

135 135

Table 2.13 Comparison of averaged values of onsets plus peaks of Mid Level with averaged values of onsets plus dips of High Rising.

136

Table 2.14 Differences in peaks and endpoints of Mid-Low Level.

137

Table 2.15 Durations of tone contours on live and dead syllables for three paired tone categories. Table 2.16 Comparison of F0 values of three level tone contours on live syllable ji: with F0 values on corresponding dead syllables for 6 Cantonese speakers. Table 2.17 F0 values of tone contours for Macao speaker G-MCM. Table 2.18 Traditional and descriptive names and numbering of Cantonese tone categories with corresponding tone contours.

138 140 147 157

List of tables

xxvii

Table 2.19 Correspondence between tones and short vowels in dead syllables.

161

Table 2.20 Correspondence between tones and long vowels in dead syllables.

161

Table 2.21 Cantonese tone sandhi in three tonal environments.

163

Table 2.22 Marking verbs for perfective aspect with High Rising pim-jvm.

177

Table 2.23 Marking verbs for perfective aspect with pim-jvm by lengthening and raising original High Level and High Rising tones.

178

Table 2.24 Marking both Verb + Object for perfective aspect with High Rising pim-jvm.

178

Table 2.25 High Rising pim-jvm replaces -tek fä in verb phrase.

178

Table 2.26 High Rising pim-jvm replaces htij Bfl'at, in, on'.

179

Table 2.27 High Rising pim-jvm replaces -tow 5Ü '(extent complement)'.

179

Table 2.28 High Rising pim-jvm replaces jvt —• 'one'.

180

Table 2.29 Reduplicated verbs and High Rising pim-jvm.

181

Table 2.30 Reduplicated stative verb with High Rising pim-jvm on first syllable. 182 Table 2.31 Reduplicated stative verb phrase + -tej fljfi+ High Rising pim-jvm.

182

Table 2.32 Tone changes on dead syllables in onomatopoeic phrases.

183

Table 2.33 High Rising pim-jvm on reduplicated noun from loss ofjvt — 'one'.

184

Table 2.34 Reduplicated classifiers with High Rising pim-jvm.

185

Table 2.35 Reduplicated classifiers with High Rising pim-jvm in sentence contexts.

186

Table 2.36 Reduplication of toy Hi'pair" in phrases with toy* jSU'scroll'.

186

Table 2.37 Contrasting stative verbs with High Rising and High Level pim-jvm.

187

Table 2.38 Limitation of stative verb with High Rising and High Level pim-jvm.

187

Table 2.39 Adverbs of time with High Level and High Rising pim-jvm.

188

Table 2.40 Derivation of nouns from verbs with High Level pim-jvm.

192

Table 2.41 Verb + Object with High Rising pim-jvm on object noun.

194

Table 2.42 Derivation of nouns from verbs with High Rising pim-jvm

196

Table 2.43 Derivation of noun from Object + Verb with High Rising pin-jäm.

197

Table 2.44 Semantic narrowing of nouns with High Rising pim-jvm.

198

Table 2.45 Pejorative and familiar nicknames with pim-jvm.

204

Table 2.46 Reduplicated kinship terms with pim-jvm.

207

Table 2.47 Nonreduplicated kinship terms with pim-jvm.

208

Table 2.48 Names of animals with pim-jvm.

211

Table 2.49 Names of fruits, plants, and vegetables with pim-jvm.

212

xxviii List of tables

Table 2.50 Names and expressions for kinds of people with pim-jvm.

214

Table 2.51 Human body-part terms with pim-jvm.

217

Table 2.52 Names of instruments, objects, tools, and various inanimate things with High Rising pim-jvm.

218

Table 2.53 Terms for buildings according to purposes, parts of house, and house furnishings with High Rising pim-jvm.

222

Table 2.54 Names of conveyances with High Rising or High Level pi:n-jvm.

224

Table 2.55 Names of prepared foods with High Rising pim-jäm.

225

Table 2.56 Names for kinds of apparel with pi:n-jem.

226

Table 2.57 Names of games with pim-jvm.

227

Table 2.58 Abstract nouns with High Rising pim-jvm.

228

Table 2.59 Changes in tone contours associated with two pim-jvm.

234

Table 2.60 Cantonese pim-jvm and Beijing Mandarin noun suffix [-4J jnl.

235

Table 2.61 Cantonese pim-jvm and Beijing-Mandarin noun suffix [-tsi-l] - p .

236

Table 2.62 Bobai diminutivization and final nasalization with βirl· ^ JsL .

238

Table 2.63 Bobai diminutivization with long rising pim-jvm.

239

Table 2.64 Xinyi diminutivization with nasal suffix and pim-jvm.

240

Table 2.65 Xinyi diminutivization with homorganic nasalization and High Rising pim-jvm on stopped syllables.

241

Table 2.66 Xinyi diminutivization with High Rising pim-jvm on syllables with diphthongs and final nasal consonants.

241

Table 2.67 Xinyi word derivation with High Rising pim-jvm.

242

Table 2.68 Limitation of Verb + Object with Xinyi High Rising pim-jvm.

242

Table 2.69 Verb reduplication with Xinyi High Rising pi:n-jvm.

243

Table 2.70 Noun classifiers and numerals with Xinyi High Rising pim-jvm.

243

Table 2.71 Limitation of stative verb with Xinyi High Rising pim-jvm.

243

Table 2.72 kam + Stative Verb with Xinyi High Rising pim-jvm.

244

Table 2.73 Contrastive meaning of reduplicated stative verb phrase with Xinyi High Rising pim-jvm.

244

Table 2.74 Stative verbs in triplicate with Xinyi High Rising pim-jvm.

245

Table 2.75 Contempt and endearment with Xinyi High Rising pim-jvm.

246

Table 3.1 Cantonese utterance-final particles and connotative meanings.

294

Table 3.2 Patterns of Cantonese intensives.

299

Table 3.3 Patterns of Cantonese onomatopoeic expressives.

302

List of tables

xxix

Table 3.4 Auspicious riming Cantonese word pairs.

305

Table 3.5 Inauspicious riming Cantonese word pairs.

306

Table 3.6 Cantonese insults for 'stupid person' formed with obscene words (1-4) and other insulting expressions (5).

312

Table 3.7 Hong Kong Cantonese taboo graffiti observed in public places.

314

Table 3.8 Types of Cantonese syllables.

316

Table 3.9 Contracted syllables in Cantonese.

319

Table 3.10 Syllable reduction in polysyllabic colloquial Cantonese words.

322

Table 3.11 Colloquial Cantonese words with consonant clusters with -/-.

322

Table 3.12 Consonant clusters with -I- in Yangjiang dialect.

323

Table 3.13 English words borrowed into Cantonese with consonant clusters with -/-.

323

Table 3.14 Homorganic assimilation in mä:r)-köt)-wä* "Hf fe BS 'blind man's speech'. Table 3.15 Mergers of consonants, vowel (with diphthong), and tones.

326 330

Table 3.16 Correspondence between Mandarin velar stop initial and Cantonese glottal fricative initial, both of which have developed from Ancient Chinese *kh-.

334

Table 3.17 Variation between High Falling tone and High Level pi:n-jvm on nouns with no identifiable conditioning factor.

343

Table 3.18 English monosyllabic words correspond to Cantonese monosyllabic words.

361

Table 3.19 English monosyllabic words correspond to Cantonese bisyllabic words.

363

Table 3.20 English bisyllabic words correspond to Cantonese bisyllabic words.

365

Table 3.21 English bisyllabic words borrowed as Cantonese trisyllabic words.

369

Table 3.22 English trisyllabic words borrowed as Cantonese trisyllabic words.

370

Table 3.23 English polysyllabic words borrowed as Cantonese monosyllabic words.

371

Table 3.24 Comparison of consonants in Cantonese and English.

372

Table 3.25 Summary of Cantonese-English initial consonant correspondences.

376

Table 3.26 Cantonese borrowing of English words with consonant clusters.

380

Table 3.27 Cantonese simplification of English syllable-final consonant clusters. 382 Table 3.28 Comparison of vowels and diphthongs in Cantonese and English.

383

xxx

List of tables

Table 3.29 Correspondence of Cantonese nuclear vowel rimes and English rimes. 384 Table 3.30 Correspondence of Cantonese diphthongs and English

rimes.

386

Table 3.31 Correspondence of Cantonese and English rimes with final nasals.

388

Table 3.32 Correspondence of Cantonese rimes with final stops and English rimes with final stops and

fricatives.

391

Table 3.33 Correspondence of polysyllabic English words with bisyllabic Cantonese words.

397

Table 3.34 English loanwords with High Level pi:r>-jvm.

400

Table 3.35 English loanwords with High Rising pin-jfm on second syllable.

401

Table 3.36 Polysyllabic English loanwords with High Level or High Rising pim-jvm on final syllable.

401

Table 3.37 English loanwords which combine Cantonese semantic root morphemes with phonetic syllables. Table 3.38 Cantonese borrowing of English abbreviations.

402 405

Table 3.39 Number of non-occurring syllables with labial-type rimes categorized by initial consonants. Table 3.40 Contrast of rimes -om and -op (from Cowles 1914 [1987]).

416 420

Table 3.41 Comparison of rimes -om and -op in five Pearl River Delta dialects with corresponding Guangzhou forms.

421

Table 3.42 Syllables with labial initial and final consonants in Nanning dialect. 423 Table 3.43 Comparison of phonetic features of syllables in nine Southeast Asian languages. 425

Introduction, the Cantonese language

Cantonese is the name of just one of many "dialects" of the Chinese language spoken in China; it belongs to the Yue J^- group (or family) of dialects distributed across southeast China where it has historically functioned as the region's standard language (Ramsey 1987:99) and its linguafranca.It is the principal language of the majority of the ethnic Chinese population of Hong Kong and is spoken along with Mandarin in nearby Canton or Guangzhou, the provincial capital of the southern coastal province of Guangdong, and in the two cities of Nanning and Wuzhou of neighboring Guangxi. Cantonese speakers refer to the language they speak as kwoiy-tsvw-wki* J f ^H p i 'Guangzhou speech', kwonj-toq-whi* ^ Ü 'Guangdong speech', hceiq-konj-waf* ^ ^ jtjf Hong Kong speech', paüc-waf* IS 'white/plain speech', thozj-wa!* Hf f g 'Tang (dynasty) speech', and jyit-jy: ί | · 'Yue language'. Emigrants from southeast China have carried Cantonese (and various other Yue dialects such as Taishan) around the globe, and one hears it spoken on the streets of overseas Chinese communities from San Francisco to Sydney to Amsterdam. The total number of speakers of Cantonese and other Yue dialects in China and overseas Chinese communities exceeds 40 million (Li 1989:241). As a result of China's market-oriented economic reforms and its opening to the West beginning in the late 1970's, the south China coastal region centered around Hong Kong and Guangzhou has been experiencing phenomenal economic growth. The region's expanding economy and its increasing international importance have passed on to Cantonese a glow of prominence that is unprecedented for a regional Chinese dialect. In Hong Kong the combination of economic prosperity and the colonial government's benign indifference toward language created a favorable environment in which both the spoken and written forms of Cantonese flourished. Cantonese is the mother tongue of over 90% of Hong Kong's Chinese population and thus its de facto official language. In satisfying the social, cultural, and linguistic needs of Hong Kong's predominantly Chinese

xxxii

Introduction, the Cantonese language

community of six million inhabitants, Cantonese has been widely used in radio news programs and plays, TV news broadcasts and soap operas, live theater, popular songs, motion pictures, and novels, newspaper cartoons and serialized stories, and mass advertising. A crucial factor helping Cantonese thrive in Hong Kong has been its use as the medium of instruction in schools where children have learned to read the Chinese characters with their standard Cantonese pronunciation. Before the relationship between Cantonese and Mandarin or Putonghua, the name of China's national language, changed in 1997 when Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty, Cantonese did not compete with Putonghua as the language of the media, government, and education because there had been no campaign to promote it at the expense of Cantonese in Hong Kong. In China neither Cantonese nor any other dialect can challenge the preeminence of Putonghua. In Guangzhou Putonghua is vigorously promoted and its standard northern pronunciation of the Chinese characters is taught in the schools, while writing in Cantonese is suppressed and speaking it is officially discouraged.

Cantonese as a regional standard On the basis of its social prestige and numbers of speakers distributed across southeastern China, Southeast Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America, Cantonese has been termed "a genuine regional standard" (Ramsey 1987:99). This status belongs uniquely to Cantonese and distinguishes it from all the other Chinese dialect families of Kejia, Min, Wu, Xiang, and Gan (described below). The past few years have witnessed an interesting linguistic phenomenon — the prestige associated with Cantonese has increased dramatically, and this has been in spite of the periodic exhortations by Chinese government authorities in China for Cantonese-speakers to speak more Putonghua rather than Cantonese. The rise in prestige of Cantonese is linked to two closely related factors: the remarkable success of the economic transformation of Guangdong Province, on the one hand, and Guangdong's close economic, cultural, linguistic, and personal ties to Hong Kong, on the

Introduction, the Cantonese language xxxiii

other. Rapid economic growth in Guangdong has been fueled in large part by investment from Hong Kong. As the language shared by both Hong Kong and Guangdong entrepreneurs, it functions as the predominant language of business in southeast China. Guangdong's newfound wealth has brought to its people considerable selfconfidence and prestige. Newspaper stories in the early 1990's described how northern Chinese people associated wealth and social prestige with their southern cousins in Guangdong and by extension their Cantonese speech. Sheryl WuDunn in her article entitled "China's South is finally getting some respect" (The New York Times, June 2, 1991) observed that: [e]ven the Cantonese language . . . is assuming new attributes, as Guangdong travelers to the north get better service in hotels when they speak Chinese with a Cantonese accent. On some occasions they are mistaken for Hong Kong visitors. "The Cantonese language has been elevated," said an official in the Guangdong city of Shenzhen. "People associate the Cantonese dialect with wealth, so that if you speak Cantonese, even if it's not native, then it's easier to get things done." Despite government officials periodically chastising Cantonese-speakers for using Cantonese rather than Putonghua, the Cantonese persist in speaking their native dialect and see nothing wrong with this. Nicholas D. Kristof reported in The New York Times (April 23, 1992) under the title "Cantonese spoken here (irking Beijing)" that linguistic differences between Guangdong and Beijing have come to highlight the economic and political rivalry between the South and the North: As the economic superstar in the Chinese constellation, already far more prosperous than other parts of China and steadily increasing the gap, Guangdong prides itself on being a symbol of China's future . . . What particularly irritates visiting northern officials is the suspicion that Cantonese sometimes refuse to speak Mandarin not out of ignorance but out of arrogance.

xxxiv

Introduction, the Cantonese language

Chinese dialects or languages? A paradox associated with the so-called Chinese "dialects" is that some are so different from each other as to be mutually unintelligible. One usually thinks that people speaking "dialects" can still comprehend one another; so if the differences in their speech are so great that they prevent communication, thai maybe we should say they are speaking different languages. Indeed, the scale of difference between the Putonghua or northern Mandarin spoken in the national capital Beijing jjt and the Cantonese spoken in Guangzhou and Hong Kong is as large as the difference between French and Italian. In a comparative study of the basic vocabulary used in the Beijing variety of Putonghua and 25 Yue dialects, Zhan — Cheung (1989:262) found that just 10% of 1,401 basic words were the same in both varieties (i.e., the words were etymologically related and written with the same Chinese characters). Not only is the amount of shared basic vocabulary quite low, but major differences in the pronunciation of the Chinese characters separate Putonghua and the Yue dialects. Putonghua has undergone more radical sound changes than Cantonese; sounds that occurred in earlier historical stages of Chinese have been better preserved in Cantonese but have completely disappeared from Putonghua. For example, the syllable-final consonants -n% -p, -t, and -k are still found in Cantonese but have all been lost in Putonghua. Cantonese also has more tones than Putonghua. By the criterion of "mutual unintelligibility" such divergent speech varieties as Cantonese and Putonghua could justifiably be termed languages rather than dialects, and some linguists in Western countries often refer to them and the other major Chinese dialect families as the Chinese languages. Nonetheless, linguists in China and Japan continue to use the term dialect in reference to different varieties of Chinese for several reasons: First, the Chinese "dialects" are spoken within the boundaries of one sovereign nation whose majority Han Chinese population regard themselves as a relatively homogeneous ethnic group with a shared history, culture, and language (some of China's ethnic minority groups also speak Mandarin as either a first or second language). Second, as linguists in China often point out, the Chinese dialects — despite their differences — share many features of

Introduction, the Cantonese language

xxxv

grammar, phonology, and lexicon. Third, the linguistic unity of China is based upon a writing system with an unbroken history of over 3,000 years, and the dialects include the reading pronunciation of the Chinese characters. One way around the problem of terminology is to adopt the broader term dialect family or group and classify mutually unintelligible dialects into different dialect families (yet some mutually unintelligible dialects may belong to the same dialect family!). Table II below lists the seven major Chinese dialect families which have been recognized by Chinese scholars. Table II. Classification of Chinese dialect families, numbers of speakers, and distribution across Chinese provinces (Li 1989:241). Dialect families by region

Number of speakers

% of total

Distribution by Chinese provinces

1. Northern: Guanhua ΊΓ gj?f (or Mandarin)

2. Central: Wu ^

707,990,000 71.5% Liaoning, Jilin, Hebei, Henan, Heilongjiang, Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hubei, Sichuan, Guangxi, Guizhou, Qinghai, Yunnan, Taiwan 73,040,000 31,270,000 30,850,000

7.5% 3.2% 3.2%

Min im

55,070,000

5.6%

Yue

40,210,000

Gan ^ Xiang

Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang Jiangxi Hunan

3. Southern:

#

Guangxi, Kejia

35,000,000

Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, overseas communities 4.0% Hong Kong, Guangdong, overseas communities 3.6% scattered pockets in Fujian, Taiwan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Sichuan, overseas communities

Total # of Speakers: 977,440,000 100.0%

xxxvi Introduction, the Cantonese language

This table indicates the distribution of these major dialect families across the northern, central, and southern regions of China (also see Map 1, Geographical distribution of seven major China dialect families in China). The numbers of speakers for the dialect families are taken from Li (1989:241). The Northern group of dialects, known as Guanhua Ί ί or Mandarin, has the greatest geographical spread across China and extends from the far northeastern province of Heilongjiang to the southwestern province of Yunnan. Speakers of local varieties of Mandarin from these two distant provinces would encounter considerable difficulty in understanding one another. Putonghua, the national language, is based on the speech of Beijing, the national capital. The Central group comprises three dialect families: (1) Wu ^ spoken in Jiangsu, Shanghai, and Zhejiang; (2) Gem ^ in Jiangxi; and (3) Xiang in Hunan. The Southern group also includes three dialect families: (1) The Min group is distributed across Fujian, eastern Guangdong, and the islands of Hainan and Taiwan. (2) The Kejia ||C dialects are scattered in pockets across Guangdong, Hainan, Guangxi, Fujian, Sichuan, and Taiwan; this closely-knit group of dialects is also commonly known as Hakka, the Cantonese pronunciation of the Chinese characters. (3) The Yue % dialects are spread across much of Guangdong, eastern Guangxi, Hong Kong, and overseas Chinese communities in North and South America, Australia, and Europe. Yue is the ancient name of the south China coastal region.

Cantonese dialects: Saam-yap and Sei-yap In the popular perception there are two main groups of Cantonese dialects based on local government boundaries, i.e., Saam-yap (or San-yi) Ü, •three districts' and Sei-yap (or Si-yi) (ΖΕΙ Ü 'four districts'. Cantonese proper or simply Cantonese, on the one hand, belongs to the Saam-yap group which is linguistically centered on Guangzhou and Hong Kong; the 'three districts' refer to Nanhai j^j , Shunde JlBf , and Panyu # ^ . On the other hand,

Introduction, the Cantonese language xxxvii

the dialects of the Sei-yap 'four districts' region lie southwest of Guangzhou (see Map 2, Yue dialect areas of southeast China) and include Taishan f^ ill, Kaiping Enping Jjg. ^ , and Xinhui $sff The rural dialects of the Sei-yap group which differ markedly from Cantonese should be regarded as distinct dialects. Up until the late 1960's before large numbers of Cantonese-speakers from Hong Kong began arriving in America, over 90% of the Chinese emigrants to the USA were speakers of Sei-yap dialects; among these the Taishan variety had historically dominated California's Chinese communities. The geographical region over which the Saam-yap and Sei-yap dialects are spread is known as the Pearl River Delta ^fH In the 1980's extensive surveys of these dialects which collected invaluable phonetic and lexical material were published by Zhan — Cheung (1987, 1988, and 1990). Cantonese is everywhere the socially-accepted prestige dialect and, as mentioned above, is generally employed as the lingua franca throughout Guangdong and eastern Guangxi Provinces and in many overseas Chinese communities. This urban or metropolitan variety has typically been the one learned first by students before they go on to study the rural dialects.

Classification of Yue dialects On the basis of phonological and lexical criteria, Yue-Hashimoto (1991:170) has classified the Yue dialects into two main groups with several subdivisions (the geographical distribution is by province, region, and district; the names of districts listed in Table 12 below appear on Map 2, Yue dialect areas of southeast China):

xxxviii Introduction, the Cantonese language

Table 12. Classification of Yue dialects by province, region, and district (from Yue-Hashimoto 1991:170). I. Pearl River Delta A. Guangfu Group 1. Guangdong

: Guangzhou

^H, Panyu § H , Aomen (Macao)

m f"!, Zengchenglt , Conghua i t , Xinyi f g Ä , Gaozhou Μ jN'l , Huaxian 2. Guangxi J t Μ : Nanning ^ , Guiping ^ ψ 3.HongKong#^ B. Northern Pearl River Delta Group :Jl: Η fi} Μ i t : 1. Sanyi-Zhaoqing Subgroup Η S M*: Guangdong: Nanhai G a o y a o H , Sanshui H z K , Shunde HH , Gaoming ^ , Foshan |Jj 2. Interior Subgroup f*3 ^/JN : Guangdong: Wuchuan ^ Jl[, Huazhou it ^H Guangxi: Beiliu ^ t Μ , Rongxian , Wuzhoufifr;ΝΊ, Mengshan |JL|, Zhaoping Bg ψ , Pingnan ψ , Cenxi ^ tH, Yulin 3£ fä, Binyang % , Hengxian gig , Cangwu^ , Yongning ^ ^ C. Southern Pearl River Delta Group l ^ H ^ I ^ H J t : 1. Qin-Lian Subgroup / h K* · Guangdong: Dongguan ^ ^ , Baoan , New Territories (Hong Kong) f f ^ · Guangxi: Qinzhou ^H, Lianjiang ^ , Hepu ^ ^ , Beihai 4fc fä, Fangeheng ßfr , Lingshan Μ li|, Pubei lit 2. Zhongshan Subgroup Φ iJLf /Jn i t : Zhongshan φ til II. Siyi-Liangyang A. Siyi P9 g , : Taishan £ li|, Enping Jg. ψ , Kaiping Pg ψ , Heshan Lij, Xinhui Doumen 4- PI B. Liangyang MB§: Yangjiang Wft^, Yangchun

Introduction, the Cantonese language xxxix

Origin of Yue dialects The ancient history books speak of the Bai Yue "jüf Q 'One Hundred Yue' tribes who occupied a vast area of southern coastal China that extended down to Vietnam during the Spring and Autumn period (722 BC — 481 BC). During the Qin Dynasty (221 BC - 206 BC), the people of the Central Plains, the traditional homeland of the Han Chinese, began their southward migrations into areas occupied by the Bai Yue to pacify and colonize south China (Yue-Hashimoto 1972:1-2). Who were the Bai Yue? What was their ethnicity? What languages did they speak? Were they the ancestors of nonSinitic peoples who still live in south China and Indochina? A number of scholars have been working on these and related questions but conclusive answers are still forthcoming. Norman (1988:210-222 passim) has proposed that the Yue, Min, and Kejia dialect groups are descended from a very early form of Chinese, viz., Old Southern Chinese, which was brought to southern China during the 1st to 3rd centuries AD. The early Han settlers came into contact with the indigenous tribes of the region and gradually assimilated many of them. In the process of assimilation the Chinese language of this period absorbed elements of the languages spoken by the indigenous peoples. That many colloquial words in the Yue dialects (as well as in other groups of Chinese dialects) do not have standard Chinese characters etymologically associated with them has led some scholars to believe that these words may not actually be Chinese in origin. In searching for the sources of colloquial words in the Yue dialects, a number of scholars have identified phonosemantically similar words in Tai languages of the region and have proposed that some of the colloquial words in Yue form an ancient Tai substratum (cf. Bauer 1987, 1996b; Egerod 1967:117; Li J-f. 1990, 1996; Li J-z. 1990; Ramsey 1987:36-38; Yuan 1983:179; and Yue-Hashimoto 1976, 1986).

xl

Introduction, the Cantonese language

History of contact between Cantonese and English The confluence of historical and geographical factors has bestowed upon Cantonese a rather unique status among the Chinese dialects: Cantonese has been the one Chinese dialect most influenced by a European language as a result of its fairly long and very intimate contact with English in Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Because Cantonese was spoken along the south China coast, it was one of the first Chinese dialects with which early European navigators came into contact. The Portuguese established Macao as a colony in 1557, so Portuguese was probably the first European language which Cantonese-speakers encountered and the one with which Cantonese has had the longest period of contact. However, as for European-language influence upon Cantonese, the large number of English loanwords borrowed into Cantonese testifies that English has had the greater impact. In the early 19th century British traders set up business companies in Macao and Guangzhou. In order to carry out their transactions, the British needed to be able to speak Cantonese; one of the first Cantonese-English dictionaries was written by Robert Morrison for the East India Company and published in Macao in 1828 (the Hong Kong Collection in the Main Library of the University of Hong Kong possesses an original copy). In 1841, as a consequence of losing the Opium War, China ceded the island of Hong Kong to Britain and it became a British Crown Colony (the Kowloon Peninsula and the New Territories came under British rule through later treaties). This relatively long history of contact with English-speakers has resulted in a number of publications written in English about Cantonese, e.g., bilingual dictionaries, glossaries, textbooks, grammars, etc.

Brief history of Cantonese studies Cantonese has long attracted the attention of Western scholars. In terms of the number of English-language publications on Chinese dialects Cantonese most probably ranks as the second-most important Chinese dialect after Mandarin. The first 20th-century study of the Cantonese sound system to

Introduction, the Cantonese language

xli

make important and reliable observations on the tone contours was A Cantonese Phonetic Reader by Daniel Jones and Kwing Tong Woo (1912). J. Dyer Ball, a British civil servant in the Hong Kong government, devised a consistent, accurate system for representing Cantonese pronunciation with Roman letters and put it to good use in his Cantonese Made Easy (1904), one of the early Cantonese textbooks. In addition to its series of interesting lessons, Y. R. Chao's Cantonese Primer (1947) described Cantonese sounds and tones and provided the student with valuable insights into the so-called changed tone or pim-jam. Probably the earliest, most comprehensive Cantonese-English dictionary was E. J. Eitel's A Chinese Dictionary in the Cantonese Dialect (18771883) in three volumes (two volumes, revised and enlarged by I. G. Genähr, 1910, 1911). Other Cantonese-English dictionaries which have proved invaluable to generations of students include Roy T. Cowles, A Pocket Dictionary of Cantonese (1914 [1987]); Bernard F. Meyer and Theodore F. Wempe, The Student's Cantonese-English Dictionary (1947); Parker Po-fei Huang, Cantonese Dictionary: Cantonese-English, English-Cantonese (1970); and Sidney Lau, A Practical Cantonese-English Dictionary (1977). Zeng Zifaris Colloquial Cantonese and Putonghua Equivalents (1986) is a comprehensive listing of colloquial Cantonese words and expressions with English translations and is organized by semantic areas. Kwan Choi Wah's The Right Word in Cantonese (1991) includes both a dictionary and a section on specialized vocabulary arranged by semantic areas. Taken together, all of these sources have served foreign students as invaluable tools for learning standard Cantonese. They also provide a historical frame of reference that extends over more than a century and shows how Cantonese has changed within this time period. Scholars working in Yue linguistics have benefited from several bibliographies which have helped them determine the state of research on a wide range of topics and direct them to the references they need. Two bibliographies with sections on Yue dialects were published in the 1980's: Paul Fu-mien Yang's Chinese Dialectology: a Bibliography (1981) and Alain Lucas' Linguistique Chinoise Bibliographie, 1975-1982 (1985). Two bibliographies which are devoted exclusively to Yue dialect studies were

xlii

Introduction, the Cantonese language

published in 1993; the first and more comprehensive A Bibliography of Yue Dialect Studies edited by Cheung Yat-shing and Gan Yu'en; the second is j g ^H % ^ ^ 3 I, A Selective Bibliography of Cantonese Linguistics (1900 - 1993) compiled by Cheng Ting Au (these two volumes were reviewed together in Bauer 1995c). These four bibliographies have provided scholars of Yue dialects with indispensable tools for their research.

Surveys and descriptions of Yue dialects During the 1980's and early 1990's Prof. Zhan Bohui and his associates at the Chinese Dialects Research Centre of Jinan University in Guangzhou in cooperation with Prof. Cheung Yat-shing and his colleagues at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University sent out research teams across Guangdong Province to conduct extensive surveys of Yue dialects (as well as the Kejia and Min dialects spoken in some areas). Detailed studies of the phonetics and vocabulary of the Pearl River Delta dialects were published in Hong Kong in three volumes (Zhan - Cheung 1987, 1988, and 1990). In 1994 the results of the survey of the northern Guangdong Yue dialects were published in one large volume by Jinan University (Zhan - Cheung 1994). The survey of western Guangdong Yue dialects will appear in 1996 or 1997. Maijorie Chan described the phonology of her own Zhongshan dialect in her 1980 M.A. thesis. Under the title [Xinyi dialect study] Ye Guoquan and Shen Ding (1987) published a valuable description and analysis of the Xinyi dialect spoken in for western Guangdong province. ], as they are perceived as more salient than the neighboring voiceless stop and fricative consonants. In both Western and Chinese linguistic traditions the syllable is divided into two main parts: (1) the onset or initial, i.e., the sound with which the syllable begins, and (2) the rime or final, the remainder of the syllable. The rime is further subdivided into two elements: (1) the peak or nucleus which may be either a nuclear vowel in an open syllable or a sonorant consonant (a consonant which is both voiced and continuous such as m or Γ), and (2) the coda, i.e., the final consonant with which the syllable aids in a closed syllable (Selkirk 1982:338). The nucleus is the only obligatory or essential component of the syllable.

1.0 Introduction to articulatory phonetics

9

A Cantonese syllable generally corresponds to a word. Consequently, the syllable constitutes an intermediate but important unit of analysis that lies between the lower level of the sound segment and the higher level of the word. In addition to the three components of initial, nucleus, and coda, the Cantonese syllable has a fourth, viz., the suprasegmental or tone (see below and Chapter 2, Cantonese tones). Tone corresponds to the pitch of the voice on which the syllable is said and overrides the entire length of the syllable. In a tone language, such as Cantonese, the tone is an essential element of the syllable in addition to the nucleus. Figure 1.2 illustrates the correspondence between the structural components or slots of the Cantonese syllable and the type of sound, consonant C or vowel V, which can fill these slots. As we will see in the discussion that follows, the maximal syllable takes the form of Initial Consonant + Vowel + Final Consonant + Tone (CjVCf\T); on the other hand, the minimal syllable requires only a Long Vowel + Tone (V:\T) or a Syllabic Consonant + Tone (CSyj\T). In general, a syllable with an initial consonant cluster, i.e., a sequence of two initial consonants (CjCjVCfVT), is not found in Cantonese; however, under special conditions a particular kind of consonant cluster does occur in the speech of some speakers and it is described in detail in Chapter 3, Cantonese syllables and words.

SUPRASEGMENTAL TONE 1ι ONSET

RIME or FINAL

INITIAL

NUCLEUS

CODA

Initial

Nuclear Vowel V or

Final

Consonant C,

Syllabic

Consonant Cf

Consonant C ^ Figure 1.2 Structure of the Cantonese syllable.

10 Chapter 1, Cantonese consonants and vowels

1.0.4 Tones Cantonese, like many of the world's languages, is a tone language; that is, the Cantonese speaker controls the pitch of the voice (its relative highness or lowness) on which a word is pronounced within a system of several contrasting pitches or tones which are sometimes referred to as lexical tones (cf. Crystal 1981:356). These tones are an indispensable part of a word's pronunciation and are just as essential to distinguishing one word from another as are the consonants and vowels. Tones which seem to glide by rising or falling are termed contour tones. While the articulation of consonants and vowels is located in the mouth, the production of tones is centered in the larynx (cf. Wang, Wm. S-y. 1991:239). The primary physical correlate of tone is fundamental frequency. As already mentioned, speech sounds are produced by the vibrating vocal cords. The greater the number of vibrations of the vocal cords per unit of time, the higher the fundamental frequency. The number of vibrations per second is measured in units called Hertz (abbreviated Hz); a fundamental frequency of 150 Hz means there were 150 openings and closings of the vocal cords in one second. The distinctive tones of a tone language correspond to the relative differences in fundamental frequency with which words are said. As we will see in Chapter 2, Cantonese tones, fundamental frequency can be measured with the computerized spectrograph to display the tone contours on the computer screen, so that we can actually see what these contours look like and how they differ from one another. It is important to point out that it is not the absolute frequency of the tone associated with a word that distinguishes its meaning from that another (speakers vary considerably in how high or low their voices are); rather, the heights (high, mid, low) of the tones in relation to each other and their contours (rising, falling, level) distinguish one tone from another. The set of contrasting tone contours that comprise the tone system of a language is quite similar for every speaker of the same tone language. Speakers of European languages initially find that learning to speak a tone language presents a big challenge. While the concept underlying a tone language is not difficult to grasp, learning to produce and distinguish the

1.0 Introduction to articulatory phonetics 11

series of contrasting tones can be a daunting task. The closest phenomenon in English is intonation, pitch patterns that signal grammatical structure (e.g., differentiating a statement from a question, indicating contrast) and the emotional state of the speaker. In the following four utterances in American English at least three semantically-distinctive intonation patterns are imposed upon the name Jim: (1) "Jim! Is that you?" is said with a rising intonation to make a question; (2) "Hey, Jim\" is said with a high falling intonation when calling to the person named Jim; (3) "I said Jim, not Tim!" which carries contrastive stress is also signalled by a high falling intonation (and the word is uttered more loudly); (4) "Jim\ How could you do that?" is uttered with an emphatic, low falling intonation to indicate the speaker may be angry or exasperated with Jim. A tone language like Cantonese exploits similar differences in pitch which are superimposed on individual syllables to convey different meanings. Chapter 2 describes the Cantonese tone system in detail and provides a series of computer-generated displays in which the contrasting tones of several speakers have been measured and compared. In this way we can analyze the distinctive tone contours that comprise the Cantonese tone system. There are six contrastive tones in Hong Kong Cantonese and seven in the Guangzhou variety. These tones have been labeled according to their individual shapes or contours. Table 1.1 below lists the descriptive names of the Cantonese tones and their corresponding diacritic symbols which have been used in this study to mark the tones. The High Stopped, Mid Stopped, and Mid-Low Stopped tones occur on syllables that aid with stop consonants; these three tones correspond in height to the High Level, Mid Level, and Mid-Low Level tones, respectively, and so share the same tone symbols. The High Level Changed tone and the High Rising Changed tone are identical to the High Level and High Rising tones, respectively, but are marked with different symbols for reasons that are explained in Chapter 2.

12 Chapter 1, Cantonese consonants and vowels

Table 1.1 Cantonese tones and their corresponding tone symbols. High Level High Falling High Rising Mid Level Mid-Low Level Mid-Low Rising Mid-Low Falling High Stopped Mid Stopped Mid-Low Stopped High Level Changed tone High Rising Changed tone

a: a: a: a: (unmarked) a: a: a: m a:t (unmarked) a:t a:° (pim-fim gf) a.* (pim-fim # ) /

A

Μ

1.0.5 Cantonese rimes and syllables Consonants and vowels are the "stuff 1 from which the words of a language are made, and so our description of Cantonese sounds will be based primarily on ordinary words of the spoken language in which the sounds occur. In Cantonese the syllable generally corresponds to the word. Therefore, the order in which we present the consonants and vowels follows the structure of the syllable like a map for analyzing the inventory of sounds which fill the slots of initial consonant, final consonant, syllabic consonant, and rime as indicated in Figure 1.2. The initial consonant slot Cj can be filled by all five types of Cantonese consonants, i.e., stops, nasals, fricatives, affricates, and approximants to be described below. The final consonant slot Cf can be occupied by the series of stops and nasals and three approximants or semivowels. A semivowel is a sound which has both vowel-like and consonant-like properties. Cantonese rimes take two main forms: either as a nucleus or as a nucleus plus coda. The minimal syllable in Cantonese need only include the nucleus — both the initial consonant and the coda are optional elements. Thus, the first type of rime lacks a coda, and the nucleus corresponds to either a

1.0 Introduction to articulatory phonetics 13

nuclear vowel V: (with long duration as indicated by the colon ":") or a syllabic consonant CSyi- Syllabic consonants are limited to two of the three nasal consonants. Nuclear vowels in open syllables and syllabic consonants both occur as independent syllables. The second type of rime, nucleus plus coda V(:)Cf, corresponds to a nuclear vowel (either long or short) and a final consonant which must be either a nasal, a stop, or a semivowel. A rime comprising a nuclear vowel plus a semivowel is termed a diphthong. Strictly speaking, a diphthong is just one vowel, the quality of which is continuously changing through its duration (Ladefoged 1993:189). Because we can hear a change from one vowel quality to another, diphthongs are conveniently represented as two elements — in Cantonese as a vowel + semivowel. The table below summarizes these two types of rimes in terms of their structures and sound segments. Table 1.2 Types of Cantonese rimes. 1. nucleus: (1) V:

= vowel (long)

(2) Cgyi

= syllabic consonant

2. nucleus + coda: V(:)Cf = vowel (long or short) + final consonant: (1) V:Cgy

= vowel (long) + semivowel

(2) VCgy

= vowel (short) + semivowel

(3) V: C n a s

- vowel (long) + nasal

(4) VC n a s

= vowel (short) + nasal

(5) V:C st0 p = vowel (long) + stop (6) VC st0 p

= vowel (short) + stop

The initial consonants combine with these two main types of rimes to form Cantonese syllables. Combinations of consonants and vowels yield fifteen types of open and closed syllables in Cantonese as indicated in Tables 1.3 and 1.4 below:

14 Chapter 1, Cantonese consonants and vowels

Table 1.3 Types of Cantonese open syllables. 1. CjV: = initial consonant + vowel (long) 2. V:

= vowel (long)

3. Cgyi = syllabic consonant

Table 1.4 Types of Cantonese closed syllables.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

CjViCgy = initial consonant + vowel (long) + semivowel CjVCgy = initial consonant + vowel (short) + semivowel VlCgy = vowel (long) + semivowel = vowel (short) + semivowel VCsv CjV:C nas = initial consonant + vowel (long) + nasal final consonant CiVC nas = Initial Consonant + Vowel (short) + nasal final consonant = Vowel (long) + nasal final consonant VC

= Vowel (short) + nasal final consonant CiV:Cst0p = initial consonant + vowel (long) + stop final consonant

CiVC stop = Initial Consonant + Vowel (short) + stop final consonant V Cgtop

= Vowel (long) + stop final consonant

VCstop

= Vowel (short) + stop final consonant

Our description of contemporary Cantonese consonants and vowels begins with the consonants which fill the initial, nuclear, and final slots of the syllable as shown above. Next, we describe the vowels which occupy the nuclear slot of the rime. We then present an analysis of each of the rimes produced by the combination of nuclear vowels with final consonants. A total of 56 rimes combine with the initial consonants to form the syllables of Cantonese. Lexical examples of all the syllables which are associated with each rime are listed. However, not all possible combinations of consonants and vowels yield actual Cantonese syllables. Chapter 3 analyzes the restrictions on the combinations of initial consonants with rimes to form the syllables of Cantonese. In our discussion we will sometimes refer to a syllable with or without a lexical meaning as a morphosyllable rather than a word, since not every Cantonese morphosyllable occurs as an independent

1.0 Introduction to articulatory phonetics 15

word or carries an identifiable meaning (this distinction is clarified in Chapter 3). In this description of Cantonese phonetics the italicized Cantonese romanization transcribes a combination of phonemes and allophones. A phonetic symbol enclosed in brackets represents the narrow transcription of the sound's phonetic value (the usual convention followed in linguistics).

1.0.6 Syllable length In her acoustic study of Cantonese syllables Kao (1971) found that different types of syllables vary in their duration; factors which influence syllable duration include voicing of the initial and final consonants and vowel length. For example, the average duration of a syllable comprising an initial consonant, long vowel, and nasal ending is about three times as long as a syllable with initial consonant, short vowel, and voiceless stop as final consonant, i.e., 352 milliseconds vs. 117 milliseconds. Table 1.5, Average durations of different Cantonese syllable types, compares the average durations of four types of syllables with initial consonants (C), long and short vowels (V:, V), nasal final consonants (C n a s ), semivowels (C sv ), and stop final consonants (C st0 p). Table 1.5 Average durations of types of Cantonese syllables (from Kao 1971:49).

syllable type:

average duration:

1. CV: Cgy, CV:Cnas 2. CVCgy, CVC nas 3. CV:Cstop 4. CVC stop

352 milliseconds 294 milliseconds 207 milliseconds 117 milliseconds

From this table we see that three syllable types have intermediate length: C W (initial consonants, short vowels, semivowels) and CVN (initial consonants, short vowels, nasal final consonants) which average 294

16 Chapter 1, Cantonese consonants and vowels

milliseconds in duration; CV:P (initial consonants, long vowels, and stop final consonants) with an average length of 207 milliseconds.

1.1 Cantonese initial and final consonants The inventory of Cantonese consonants includes 19 phonemes: 16 consonants are oral and three are nasal, and all occur as initial consonants of syllables. There are two series of homorganic consonants (pairs of consonants with the same place of articulation), the nasals m, n, g, and the stops p, t, k.; these six consonants occur as both the initial and final consonants of syllables. Table 1.6 lists the initial consonants by their places and manners of articulation. Cantonese consonants contrast five places of articulation that range across the full length of the oral tract: (1) labial, (2) dental/alveolar, (3) post-alveolar/palatal, (4) velar, and (5) glottal; and five manners of articulation: (1) stop, (2) nasal, (3) fricative, (4) affricate, and (5) approximant. The combined places of articulation, dental/alveolar and post-alveolar/palatal, indicate that the position of the tongue can vary between dental and alveolar or post-alveolar and palatal, respectively. In addition to their places of articulation, the stops and affricates are further distinguished by the feature of aspiration. The table includes the three nondistinctive, palatalized allophones which are marked by the asterisk *.

1.1 Cantonese initial and final consonants 17

Table 1.6 Cantonese initial consonants. places of articulation: manners of articulation: 1. stop: unaspirated: aspirated: 2. nasal: 3. fricative: 4. affricate: unaspirated: aspirated: 5. approximant:

1. labial

Ρ ph m f

2. dental/ 3. post-alveolar/ alveolar palatal t th π s ts tsh 1

4. velar

k

5. glottal

kw

kh khw

7

Ό h

V

*tfl> w j "The asterisked consonants are non-contrastive, palatalized allophones.

1.1.1 Stop consonants a. Voiceless unaspirated stop initial consonants: p- [p], t- [t], k- [k] The three initial consonants p-, t-, k- are oral, voiceless, unaspirated stops and are produced almost as in English: the airflow is blocked by the closed lips for ρ-, by the tongue tip touching the back of the upper front teeth for t-, and by the back of the tongue making contact with the velum for k-. Cantonese t- and English [t] do not have quite the same place of articulation; the tip of the tongue is more forward for the Cantonese stop and may touch the back of the upper front teeth, whereas for the English stop the tongue tip touches the alveolar ridge. There are two important differences between this series of stops in English and Cantonese: the Cantonese stops are produced without voicing and without the accompanying aspiration (just as with French unaspirated stop consonants); i.e., the release of the consonant closure (opening the lips, lowering the tongue) is not followed by a puff of air before voicing the

18 Chapter 1, Cantonese consonants and vowels

following vowel. To the American-English speaker's ear the Cantonese unaspirated consonants give the impression of his/her own partially voiced (or voiceless) initial stop consonant allophones [b], [d], [g], respectively, which resemble the Cantonese sounds by their lack of aspiration. The Cantonese consonants, however, are produced without any voicing. To make the unaspirated stop consonants, the student should keep in mind the stop consonants of American English [b], [d], and [g] when they occur in wordinitial position and refrainfromvoicing them. The following words illustrate the unaspirated stop initial consonants: ρά: IE '(classifier for knife)', tä: ff'to hit, beat', kä:^. 'family1 (the acute accent and the macron placed over the vowels are tone marks which indicate the High Rising and High Level tones, respectively).

b. Voiceless aspirated stop initial consonants: ph- [ph], th- [th], kh- [kh] Contrasting with the above unaspirated series of stops is the corresponding series of voiceless aspirated stop initial consonants ph-, th-, and kh-. The symbol h after the stop consonant represents the aspiration or puff of air which follows the release of the stop closure. These consonants are pronounced much like the English stops [ph], [t11], and [kh] which are aspirated when they occur at the beginning of a word or a syllable, as in the English words pill [phi+], till [thii], and kill [khii]. The English-speaking student should have no difficulty producing the aspirated series of Cantonese stops since they are practically the same as in English. However, for Cantonese th- the tongue tip is further front and may touch the back of the upper teeth; in contrast the English aspirated stop [th] is made with the tongue tip positioned a bit further back and touching the alveolar ridge. Example words with aspirated stop initial consonants are pha: fQ 'to be 2 afraid', thä:m J t 'greedy1, khaiw ^ ' t o lean, rely on'. The difference between Cantonese ph- and p- is of the same type as that between the p's of English pill [phii] with aspiration and spill [spii] without aspiration; and the same is true also for the distinctions between Cantonese tand th-, k- and kh- (as well as ts- and tsh- to be discussed below). As

1.1 Cantonese initial and final consonants 19

mentioned above, English unaspirated stop consonants are allophones (or predictable variants) of aspirated stop consonants. In Cantonese, on the other hand, the difference between the aspirated and unaspirated stop consonants is a distinctive, phonemic contrast, and failure to observe this basic difference will lead to utter confusion. Many pairs of words are distinguished solely by the presence or absence of aspiration (-Λ-) after the stop initial consonants p-, t-, and k- (and affricate ts-, see below). Table 1.7 below lists pairs of words in which their initial stop consonants are distinguished by aspiration. Table 1.7 Lexical items contrasting unaspirated and aspirated stop initial consonants p-lph-, t-/th-, k-/kh-. unaspirated initial stops:

aspirated initial stops:

päm 3jfE 'group of people' tarn ip. 'single' kvm njft 'in this way'

phäm 'to climb' thäm 'to open and spread out' kbem Π7 'to cover'

c. Labialized-velar stop initial consonants: kw- [kw], khw- [k hw ] The initial consonants kw- and khw- are co-articulated labialized-velar (or labio-velar) stops and this is indicated by the raised w in their narrow phonetic transcription. With these consonants both the voiceless velar stop kand the voiced labial approximant -w- are pronounced simultaneously; the back of the tongue is held against the velum for k- and at the same time the lips are tightly rounded for -w- as though saying English ooh [u:]. Aspiration is also contrastive for this pair of initial stops. The aspirated initial consonant khw- should give no trouble to the English-speaker because similar sounds are found in English and are represented in the orthography with qu as in quick [k hw ik] and quote [k hw owt]. In standard Cantonese the labialized-velars kw- and khw- are articulated with friction through tight lip-rounding so that they contrast with k- and kh-, respectively. Table 1.8 below lists examples of the unaspirated and aspirated labialized-velars.

20 Chapter 1, Cantonese consonants and vowels

Table 1.8 Lexical items contrasting unaspirated and aspirated labialized-velar stop initial consonants kw- and khw-. unaspirated labialized-velar: aspirated labialized-velar: khwä: to boast' kwä: /R'melon' khwvj 'regulate' kwvj |jj| 'tortoise' kwm $£1κ>ΐΓ khwsn jgCbind, tie' kwönj ^'bright' khwoxf $$ 'a mine for ore' kwadc $9 'to slap' khwadc R$'to encircle, loop' The labialized-velar initials kw- [ k ^ and khw- [khw] have been analyzed as co-articulations rather than as sequences of plain velar stop followed by labial approximant w- (i.e., [kw-] and [kNv-]). On the phonetic level, the velar stop and the labial element are articulated simultaneously as one unit. As we will see in Chapter 3, their pattern of combination with rimes very much resembles the labial approximant initial w- rather than the plain velars (cf. Appendix 3, Cantonese syllabary, a matrix of occurring and nonoccurring syllables); in particular, w-, kw-, and khw- tend not to combine with rimes ending in labially-articulated consonants {-m, -p, -w). Furthermore, Figure 1.2, Structure of the Cantonese syllable, indicates that consonant clusters do not occur in Cantonese. If the labialized-velar consonants were to be analyzed as sequences of velar stop initials k- and khplus labial approximant initial w- thai these clusters become exceptions to 3

the rule that an initial consonant cannot be followed by another consonant. Given that only the velar consonants are labialized, our description gives us two unexceptional initial consonants which conform like all the others to the syllable canon (cf. Yue-Hashimoto 1972:137-138). In standard Cantonese the labialized-velars kw- and khw- contrast with the plain velars k- and kh- respectively, before most of the vowels including the mid, back round vowel o:, e.g., kwoitj ^fc 'bright' is distinguished from k5:ij 'river1; other examples of minimal pairs contrasting the labializedvelar initial consonants kw-ikhw- with the plain velars k-lkh- before oi are listed in Table 1.9.

1.1 Cantonese initial and final consonants 21

Table 1.9 Lexical items contrasting labialized-velars kw-

and khw-

with plain velars k-

and kh- before back round vowel -a:. labialized-velar initials:

plain velar initials:

kwo: jfl 'cross over1

ko: -flU '(general classifier)'

kwonj

köhj i t 'river*

khwoit]

'bright' mine for ore'

khoz)

'resist'

kwoüc ( ϋ 'country, nation'

koüc 45- 'each, every'

khwodc ^ f 'expand, enlarge'

khoüi

'true, reliable'

Benedict's 1942 study recorded that his Guangzhou subjects observed this distinction. However, since the 1940's, a significant change has occurred in the pronunciation of the words in the left column of Table 1.9. For many speakers in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macao (and other neighboring areas) the labialized-velar stops have lost their labial friction when they occur before the back round vowel o: (which is also produced with lip-rounding). The loss of lip-rounding appears to be the result of the phonetic process of dissimilation in which one of two similar sounds in sequence disappears. Among the subjects Bauer has worked with for this study, the three from Guangzhou were able to contrast the two sets of velar initials before the back round vowel, and one of these speakers did so only when reading from a word list. Only one of his subjects from Hong Kong pronounced the labialized-velar initials before o:. For the majority of Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong (and Macao) standard kwo:g jfc 'bright' is pronounced koirj and is thus homophonous with ko:r) yT. 'river1; the same is true for other pairs of words which have become homophonous through the loss of the tense liprounding before o:, standard kwoJc |U 'nation' is the same as ko'Jc 'each', kwo: iM "to cross over* is pronounced like ko: ^ '(general classifier)', khwoit) 'a mine for ore' sounds the same as kho:i) ^rt 'to resist', etc. However, it should be made clear that before the round vowel o: the velar consonants are still articulated with some lip-rounding, but this is the same non-contrastive, allophonic labialization that accompanies the articulation of all consonants when they occur before round vowels (as described above in section 1.0.2). What has been lost for most Cantonese speakers in Hong

22 Chapter 1, Cantonese consonants and vowels

Kong is the additional tense lip-rounding which distinguishes labializedvelars from plain velars in the standard dialect. This loss of contrast between kw-!k- and khw-lkh- before the rimes -o.\ -o:rj, and -oüc has resulted in the large-scale merger of two classes of words, yet this massive homophony has happened without any apparent negative impact upon communication. On the basis of findings from Bauer's sociolinguistic study conducted in 1980-81, Chapter 3 describes the social distribution of this linguistic development within the Hong Kong community.

d. Unreleased stop final consonants: -ρ [ρΊ], -t [t1], -k [k1] When the unaspirated stop consonants p, t, and k occur at the aids of syllables, they are unreleased (or unexploded) consonants. In a narrow phonetic transcription the unreleased closure of a stop consonant is symbolized by the raised comer sign Ί after the stop consonant; e.g., sup [stfpn] M. 'wet', süt [suf ] H 'knee', svk [sekn] H to plug up'. In syllablefinal position these consonants are pronounced in a "clipped" fashion, i.e., the closure of the vocal organs (the two lips, the tongue tip against the back of the upper front teeth, the back of the tongue against the velum) to produce the consonant is briefly held, thus stopping the flow of breath, and then the closure is released but without the customary puff of air or aspiration that ordinarily follows the release of word-final stops in English, e.g., pack [phaekh], tap [thaeph], However, unreleased stops do occur in certain environments in English, so drawing attention to them may help Englishspeaking students find these unreleased (or "checked") Cantonese consonants less difficult to hear upon their first acquaintance with the language. In English when a voiceless stop consonant is followed by another stop consonant or a nasal consonant within the same word, or a compound word, or across word boundaries, the first consonant is unreleased just as in Cantonese; for example, carefully pronouncing the words apt [sep t], acne [ask'ni], catnap [kaef naeph], and lock now [laikn nasw] should demonstrate for the reader that the first stop consonant in each word is briefly held (as

1.1 Cantonese initial and final consonants 23

indicated by the raised comer symbol1 written after the consonant) and thai released but without any accompanying aspiration. The regular patterning of particular vowels which precede the unreleased Cantonese stops in syllables (see below) often aids in distinguishing among them. The unreleased, unaspirated stop final consonants are variants or allophones of the unaspirated stop initial consonants. We will say more about them in section 1.3.4, Rimes with homorganic final consonants -m/-p, -n/-t, -q/-k. Table 1.10 Lexical items with unreleased stopfinalconsonants -p, -t, -k. SOP 'wet' sa:p ^ 'dazzle' sep + 'ten'

set ££ 'knee' sa:t 'kill' set 'solid'

s§k Μ 'plug up' saJc ^ 'extort' sek 'eat'

1.1.2. Nasal consonants a. Nasal initial and final consonants: m [m], η [η], r) [ij] The series of Cantonese nasal consonants contrast three places of articulation, bilabial, dental and velar. These nasal consonants are closely akin to English [m], [n], and [q] (in syllable-final position as in sin^ [sir)]), with both languages producing them in essentially the same way. In the articulation of the nasals the vocal cords are vibrating, one of the articulators is stopping the flow of air from the mouth, and the soft palate or velum is lowered to allow the air to flow through the nasal cavity and out through the nose (all other Cantonese consonants are oral sounds produced with the velum raised and pressed against the wall of the pharynx to close off the nasal cavity). The bilabial nasal m is produced with the lips closed and the tongue in a lowered, neutral position; the dental nasal η is made with the lips apart and the tongue tip touching the back of the upper front teeth; the velar nasal y is produced with the lips apart and the back of the tongue raised and touching the velum.

24 Chapter 1, Cantonese consonants and vowels

All three Cantonese nasal consonants appear in both initial and final positions of syllables. Because English ng [η] does not occur at the beginning of words, Cantonese initial g- may cause some difficulty for the English-speaking student. In learning to produce this sound, he/she should keep in mind the articulation of English sing [SIIJ] but focus attention on the syllable's final portion, the velar nasal [rj], and prolong its articulation. Care must be taken to pronounce η- as a single sound (not as [n] + [g]) with the tongue in position for k and the nasal passage open (with lowered velum) to permit the outward flow of air. Table 1.11 Lexical items with bilabial, dental, and velar nasal initial and final consonants m, n, η. nasal initial consonants: ma: 'horse' na: Φ5 'mother, female' rja: 'tooth'

nasal final consonants: gäm B^ 'correct, suitable' nasi 'difficult' qk'jj ί§ί 'hard, solid, stiff

The three nasal consonants (along with the approximants w-, j-, and 1- to be described below) belong to the class of sonorants, i.e., they are voiced consonants whose utterance can be prolonged for as long as the flow of air from the lungs is maintained. Three important differences or changes in Cantonese as it was spoken 50 years ago and the language of today are associated with the nasal consonants. The first change concerns the substitution of lateral approximant 1- for n-, words which are pronounced in standard Cantonese with nregularly take 1- in the speech of many speakers in Hong Kong, particularly younger ones; the resulting merger of two large classes of words seems not to have had any negative impact on communication. The second difference is the deletion or addition of velar nasal initial #-to syllables; in the late 1940's Chao (1947:18) had pointed out in his Cantonese Primer that the speech of a minority of Guangzhou speakers had no initial today many speakers in Hong Kong and Guangzhou (and neighboring areas) exhibit some confusion in the pronunciation of words with standard /;-. The third change is the

1.1 Cantonese initial and final consonants 25

merger of nasal syllabic consonants g and m to m which is discussed in the next section. Let us consider one of Bauer's Guangzhou consultants whose use of greflects a pattern of random variation; he is a representative of many speakers for whom the presence or absence of initial g- is simply not contrastive. He sometimes pronounced initial g- and sometimes did not in repetitions of the same word; e.g., he used the standard form ga: "tooth' in gärt ga: 'grind teeth' but not in tshait a: J^lJ ^f 'brush teeth' and a:-tshart* J®Ü •toothbrush'. He said both gin-tsvj and in-tsvj 'abnormally small boy1 but seemed unaware that he had used two different pronunciations. However, he not only pronounced initial g- in words which have it in the standard language, as in go: 'Γ, g zw 0 'lotus', and ga:g "hard', but also in words which do not, such as guw i g "to vomit' and gait JE'to press'. When saying the words for 'to vomit' and 'lotus' together, he repeated gvw with mv and rjuw with vw several times and seemed quite unsure which pronunciations were the "right" ones. Although most of Bauer's Hong Kong and Macao consultants consistently pronounced initial g-, many speakers in Hong Kong, particularly younger ones, have a tendency to drop initial g- from words which have it in the standard variety and say vw instead of gvw ^ 'cow', 6: instead of go: 'Γ, and ä:n instead of gam 'eye', etc. At the same time, some speakers add initial g- to syllables which do not have it in the standard language and say g€w for vw 'Au (surname)' and gök-khej for ök-khej Μ fök "house', etc. In addition, some neighboring Cantonese dialects, e.g., Panyu and Shunde, have uniformly dropped initial g- from syllables which have it in standard Cantonese; e.g., speakers of Panyu dialect say [cN] ^f 'tooth' which corresponds to standard Cantonese ga: (Zhan — Cheung 1987:17). In talking about the deletion or addition of g-, we borrow a term from Chinese linguistics, viz., zero-initial (or 0-initial), which refers to those syllables which lack an initial consonant but begin with a non-contrastive glottal stop or vowel. We can then say that many speakers of Cantonese exhibit variation between //-initial and 0-initial. Chapter 3, Cantonese syllables and words, reports findings from three sociolinguistic studies of this variation.

26 Chapter 1, Cantonese consonants and vowels

b. Nasal syllabic consonants: m [m], rj [q] In addition to occurring in the initial and final positions of syllables, the two nasal consonants m and η can also occur as syllable nuclei. That is, the two nasal consonants m and η differ from all other Cantonese consonants in one important respect, viz., they may constitute complete syllables in themselves without the addition of a vowel. Such a consonant-syllable is called a syllabic (and is represented in phonetic notation with a dot below the symbol as in [m]; our romanization of the nasal syllables does not use the dot). The pronunciation of the velar nasal syllabic g is essentially the same as but slightly longer than the pronunciation of the velar nasal consonant when it occurs in initial and final positions of a syllable. The same is true for the pronunciation of the bilabial nasal syllabic m — the articulation is the same as when m occurs at the beginning or aid of a syllable but the voicing lasts a bit longer when m is a syllabic. The two nasal syllabic consonants are produced by "humming" the consonants; at the same time the vocal cords are vibrating and the lips are closed for m or the back of the tongue is raised touching the velum for η, the velum is lowered to allow air to pass through the nose and for voicing to resonate in the nasal cavity. In standard Cantonese the bilabial nasal syllabic m occurs in only one colloquial word, m 'no, not'. Examples of velar nasal syllabic η (which may occur even in those dialects which drop initial η- mentioned above) are listed in Table 1.12 below:

Table 1.12 Lexical items with bilabial and velar nasal syllabic consonants m, η. m Hf} 'no, not'

ή ^ 'Ng (surname)' Ο 3Ϊ. '5' tsöη-ή φ ^F 'noon' tsho'-η 'mistake'

As stated above, a second sound change distinguishes the Cantonese of 50 years ago and the contemporary language. While syllabic g has been the standard pronunciation for the Chinese characters listed above and others,

1.1 Cantonese initial and final consonants 27

these characters also may have a variant pronunciation with the bilabial nasal syllabic m in the speech of many speakers in Hong Kong and Guangzhou (and other areas) in place of standard η. Indeed, among younger people nonstandard m has just about completely replaced η in Hong Kong Cantonese (for details see Chapter 3 and Bauer 1982d, 1983). None of the subjects under age 50 who Bauer consulted for this study used the velar nasal syllabic η in their speech. Fifty years ago Benedict noted the occurrence of m as a variant form of η and attributed its origin to the process of labial assimilation. Labial assimilation has caused the standard velar nasal syllabic η to change to the bilabial variant m when tj occurred next to a sound with a labial place of articulation. For example, instead of saying standard g-min '$5.00', some speakers say m-m€n\ in anticipation of the following bilabial nasal initial consonant m- of mm the speaker closes his/her lips before uttering the nasal syllabic and at the same time does not raise the back of the tongue to touch the velum, and in so doing changes its place of articulation from velar to bilabial. Another example is found in the word shp-rj 3 l '15' which is pronounced shp-m by some speakers who continue to hold the lip closure of final bilabial stop -p while producing the following nasal syllabic and change its place of articulation to bilabial. For those speakers who use the m variant only when a neighboring bilabial consonant is present, that is, the occurrence of m is the product of assimilation, we can say that m is a conditioned variant (the condition being the presence of the contiguous bilabial consonant). However, many speakers, particularly younger ones, now only say m instead of regardless of whether or not a bilabial consonant occurs in the phonetic environment. For them, m is an unconditioned sound change. Chapter 3 describes in more detail findings from Bauer's 1982 study of this sound change and its social distribution in the Hong Kong community.

28 Chapter 1, Cantonese consonants and vowels

1.1.3 Fricative initial consonants: f- [f], s- [ s ] , / - [J], h- [h] The Cantonese fricative consonants which occur only in the initial position of syllables contrast four places of articulation, viz., labio-dental, alveolar, postalveolar/palatal, and glottal. The Cantonese fricatives are pronounced approximately the same as the corresponding English sounds [f], [s], [j], and [h] (which are written in English orthography with the same letters of the alphabet, but [J] is written as sh). The Cantonese labio-dental fricative f- is produced with the upper teeth touching the lower lip just as in English, e.g., fa: ^ 'flower1. When f- is followed by round vowels as in fa: ^ 'trousers' and fo:rf ffi 'room', its articulation is accompanied by slight rounding of the lips in anticipation of the following round vowel. For Hong Kong speakers and some Guangzhou speakers alveolar fricative s- varies between English alveolar [s] as in see [si:] and post-alveolar/ palatal fricative [f] as in she [Jr.], but in general it is closer to [s] with the tongue tip positioned just behind (but not touching) the upper front teeth and the blade of the tongue touching the alveolar ridge, as in sä: 'sand' and si: Hf 'poem'. The phonetic value of Cantonese s- varies according to the nature of the following vowel: before most vowels s- closely resembles English [s]; but when it occurs before high front round vowel y:, s- becomes palatalized as the lips are rounded and the tongue is raised toward the hard palate to produce y: The fricative now has a phonetic value represented by alveopalatal fricative [9] or post-alveolar/palatal fricative [f], as in fy: $ 'book', fy:n g t 'sour1, and fy:t H'snow'. According to Zhan — Cheung (1990:42), however, Guangzhou speakers palatalize s- to [9] before both i: and y:. Among Hong Kong speakers when s- occurs before front and central round vowels a?: and 0 which one might think would also palatalize s-, the fricative still keeps its alveolar place of articulation, e.g., sl:-so6:r) ^ 'thinking', 1 son f | | 'letter . For some Guangzhou speakers the fricative initial has a phonetic value that lies between alveo-palatal fricative [9] and post-alveolar/palatal fricative [J], regardless of the nature of the following vowel; e.g., one hears 91: Jj§l 'idea', fy: ^ ' b o o k ' , gä: fö'sand', gej [ZEI 'four1, fow^'number1, gvm v[> "heart',

1.1 Cantonese initial and final consonants 29

Qlm 'first', qäm LÜ 'mountain1, ςοέιη 'think', etc. Li et al (1995:25) have transcribed the Guangzhou fricative as /-, while Hou et al (1995:4-5) write it as s- Our romanization system distinguishes between the alveolar fricative and its palatalized allophone by transcribing s- and /-, respectively. The glottal fricative h- is produced at the glottis (the opening or hole between the vocal cords) and is pronounced the same as in English (and without the "harsh" quality of the velar fricative [x] typically found in the northern Chinese dialects), e.g., hä: ί[|'shrimp'. Table 1.13 Lexical items with initial fricative consonants /-, s-, /-, hfä: Hfc 'flower' fäm jJ* 'return' fa:t 'method'

sä: 'sand' säm ii| 'mountain' sa:t ^'kill'

fy: # *book' fyai ^ 'sour' fy:t H'snoW

hä: 4g 'shrimp' häm @ 'stingy' ho:t 'thirsty'

1.1.4 Aspirated, unaspirated affricates: ts- [ts], tsh- [tsh], tf- [tj], tfl- [tj h ] The combination of a stop consonant plus a fricative produces an affricate. In Cantonese there is one pair of voiceless, unaspirated and aspirated, dental affricate initial consonants, ts- and tsh-, which are made up of a sequence of voiceless dental stop t- [t] followed by the voiceless alveolar fricative s- [s]. Just as with the three pairs of stop consonants, the affricates contrast the feature of aspiration. To the English-speaker's ears, the Cantonese aspirated affricate tsh- may sound like English orthographic ch as in church [tf'VtJ11], but Cantonese tsh- is generally not palatalized unless it is followed by front or round vowels /';, y:, oe:, θ (and it is not articulated with rounded lips as in English unless followed by a round vowel). The closest sounds in English occur word-finally, as the final ts of cats [khaets] but with rather more aspiration. Lexical examples with dental affricate initial consonants ts- and _

7

tsh-are tsa: ^ ' t o grab' and tshä: ^'difference; bad'. When occurring before the high front vowel i: and the front and central round vowels y:, oe:, and θ, ts- and tsh- become palatalized to tf- [tf] and tfli- [tf1], respectively, as the tongue is moved back slightly and raised to make greater contact with the hard palate in the articulation of these

30 Chapter 1, Cantonese consonants and vowels

particular vowels, as indicated by the lexical examples in Table 1.14 below. Our romanization system distinguishes the non-palatalized affricates ts- and 8 tsh- from their palatalized allophones tf- and tfh-. For both Guangzhou and Hong Kong Cantonese Zhan — Cheung (1990:42, 44) have transcribed the pair of affricates as ts- and tsh-, while Li et al (1995) represent them as tf- and tfh- In their section on Guangzhou Cantonese Zhan — Cheung (1990:42) have noted that before the front vowels i: and y: (round vowels ce: and θ were not mentioned) affricates tsand tsh- are palatalized to tg- and tgh-, respectively; and for Hong Kong Cantonese the affricates have palatalized variants with fricative / - or g(although the conditions for palatalization were not specified, one presumes they are the same as for Guangzhou). Table 1.14 Lexical items with non-palatalized affricate initial consonants ts-ltshand palatalized affricate initial consonants tf-ltfh- contrasting in aspiration. unaspirated affricates:

aspirated affricates:

tsä: iit'to grab, grasp' tsäm jÜ '(clsfir. for lamp)1

tshä: ^'difference; bad' tshäm ^ 'meal'

tsäsj gf 'elbow*

tshäxj* 'orange (fruit)' tfbi: 'a time, occasion' tfhy: JÜ 'place, location'

tfi: ^ 'Chinese character'

tfy·

'pig'

tfen 'allow, permit' tfoeq ϊϊϋ 'Cheung (surname)'

tflen 'stupid' tflcey -H 'long'

The palatalized Cantonese affricate initials tf- and tfh- closely resemble the pair of alveo-palatal affricate initials [tp] and [t