Erhua (儿化）considered standard in Mandarin?

[chrix]

Shi Tong, your scan doesn't say anything about 會 in the meaning of 一會兒, so it's irrelevant to the discussion (note the meanings it lists).

Now 一會兒 is not used by many people in speech, mostly in writing, so it's clear that people would disagree about the pronunciation. My point was arguing from what the standard was, and materials that describe the standard reflect this, like the MOE dictionary, and presumably also textbooks.

[Shi Tong]

But that makes realmao right- there is a standard which is kind of different from what people experience.

However, I would say that people can speak standard Mandarin with what erhua is taught to them and generally be able to communicate well throughout China.

Problem with standards for such a large country/ area is that the area is too large to have a standard without it being partly artifical.

EDIT: Just saw your message Chrix.

I didn't realise that you were asking specifically about yihuir, but as you said, it's such a lip service style Taiwanese word, that nobody says it there. So I dont know what pronunciation it would be, so I would assume it's hui3r, which actually ties in with what my wife was saying- as the Taiwanese way of saying it would be third tone.

[Guest realmayo]

erhua and qingsheng seem to tolerate much more leeway

Yes. The question becomes, for those Chinese who (consciously or otherwise) judge someone's educational and cultural etc background based on how standard their putonghua is when they're trying to speak putonghua: do they take erhua & qingsheng into account at all?

[Shi Tong]

Yes. The question becomes, for those Chinese who (consciously or otherwise) judge someone's educational and cultural etc background based on how standard their putonghua is when they're trying to speak putonghua: do they take erhua & qingsheng into account at all?

I think they would, yes, but it doesn't happen as much in Taiwan, since Taiwan have their own standard.

The only thing that happens there is judgment of peope speaking "daiwan goyu", which is badly pronounced Mandarin with a Taiwanese accent for those whose Mandarin is their second language.

Renzhe would know better about the Chinese standard of Mandarin and the judgments that people would make, I think?

[imron]

Now 一會兒 is not used by many people in speech,

It's used all the time, at least in more northern areas of China (Beijing and Hebei being my point of reference).

[chrix]

imron, we were discussing usage in Taiwan, it being one of those lipservice erhua words found in writing in Taiwan.

[imron]

Ah ok, that'll teach me not to read things more thoroughly.

[Altair]

兒 has second tone when it means "child" or something related to that meaning, like 兒子 érzi, or 女儿 nǚ'ér.

It doesn't carry a tone when used to denote erhua. It simply modifies the ending of the previous syllable. It doesn't do anything to the tone.

I believed this as well, but I once read in a fairly scholarly book that the added erhua actually does modify the tone of the syllable somewhat. For instance, I think I recall that the normal tonal range of shi4 can be represented by (5-1), whereas "shier" is more like (4-1) or (3-1). I cannot recall some of the other alterations, but they were a little bit less subtle. In any case, the erhua did not just turn the syllable into a second tone.

[renzhe]

OK, to get back to the topic, and whether 儿 is considered standard in Mandarin or later development through the influence of the Beijing dialect, and thus wrong.

We should keep in mind that the Guoyu (1932) and later Putonghua (1955) standard(s) were based on the written canon and the pronunciation of the Beijing elite. So I had a look at some written canon, especially from the beginning of the 20th century, and some earlier stuff. I'll link wherever possible, and list some examples of what was common in the literature around the time the standard was being decided.

Lai Ho's (赖和) Advocate: 闲空儿, 味儿, 一会儿.

(Lai Ho was a famous Taiwanese poet who published in the first half of the 20th century)

Jin Yong's (金庸) Legend of the Condor Heroes (1955): 大夥儿, 玩儿, 靖儿 (dim.), 明儿, 小雕儿, 一忽儿, 点儿, 顶儿尖儿, 今儿,

(Jin Yong wrote his stuff in the 50s and onward, but he's from Zhejiang, and wrote all of his works in Hong Kong, so not a northerner)

Ba Jin's (巴金) Family (1933): 一块儿, 琴儿 (dim.), in some other chapters there are more, like 慢慢儿

(Ba Jin was Sichuanese from Chengdu, and the story takes place there)

Xiao Hong's (萧红) Hands: none (only onomatopoeia)

(somewhat ironically, Xiao Hong is from Heilongjiang)

Eileen Chang's (张爱玲 ) Love in a Fallen City (1944): 强性儿, 那儿, 罐儿, 哪儿, 影儿, 明儿, 年头儿, 这儿, 早点儿, 傻劲儿, 大夥儿, 窝儿, 一块儿, 旁边儿, 玩艺儿,待会儿, 昨儿, 眼儿

(Eileen Chang was Shanghainese, but keep in mind that she did grow up in Tianjin)

Lu Xun's (鲁迅) Medicine (1919) : 角儿, 字儿, 瑜儿 (dim.), 婴儿

(Lu Xun was from Zhejiang, and I should point out that he used erhua very sparingly)

Mao Dun's (茅盾 ) Midnight (1933): 点儿, 几分儿, 这会儿, 轻声儿, 猫儿, 玩意儿

(Mao Dun was born in Zhejiang and studied in Hangzhou and Beijing, then worked in Shanghai)

Xueqin Cao's Dream of the Red Chamber (18th century): 歌儿, 蛛絲儿, 肝儿, 戶儿, 今儿, 說話儿, 眼儿, 眼色儿, 貓儿狗儿,

(keep in mind that the story takes place in Beijing, so there is Beijing dialect used in conversation)

Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West (16th century): 狗儿, 早儿, 焰兒, 花帳兒, 包兒, 牌兒, 一起兒, 匣兒, 氣兒, 帖兒, etc.

If all of these works are non-standard Mandarin, then I've been learning it wrong all these years.

Edited March 18, 2010 at 02:43 PM by renzhe

[atitarev]

This nails it, Renzhe. Good job.

[Shi Tong]

Totally.

Yes-- erhua is standard in Mandarin.

Thanks for bringing this back to it's original topic!!