降 - xiang or jiang?

[Mark Yong]

Under what circumstances is 降 pronounced xiang (hong in Cantonese), and under what circumstances is it pronounced jiang (gong in Cantonese)? Which one is the literal pronunciation and which one is the colloquial one?

A friend told me that the word for "elevator", i.e. 升降機 should be sing-gong-gei in Cantonese, and not sing-hong-gei. However, I have heard it pronounced as sheng-xiang-ji in Mandarin, which suggests an inconsistency between the two dialects.

[Hanlink]

I do not think that it is a matter of colloquial or literal, it is a matter of what you are using it to mean. When the verb means fall or move downward, it is pronounced gong as in the word for lift or the landing of a plane, but when it is, for example, used in the word for surrender 投降, it is pronounced hong. This distinction is the same as in Mandarin.

[chenpv]

From Kangxi Zidian:

【唐韻正】古音洪，凡降下之降，與降服之降，俱讀爲平聲。故自漢以上之文無讀爲去聲者。

From the book 《唐韻正》: 降, the archaic pronunciation is hong2. When it comes to the words such as '降下' and '降服', 降 should be pronounced as xiang2, in that this character prior Han Dynasty had no such pronunciation as 'jiang4'.

◎按降下之降今讀去聲，相沿已久，然唐韻正歷有明據，應從之。類篇降字無平聲，非。

Note: It is nowadays that 降 in 降下 is pronounced as 'jiang4' and has been in this way for a long time. However, according to the many proofs in 《唐韻正》, we ought to abide by the correct pronunciation 'xiang2'. Another book 《類篇》 does not even include 降 under 'xiang2'，which is wrong.

〇按降以去聲爲正音，自玉篇始。

Note: Ever since the book 《玉篇》, 降 has been categorized under 'jiang4'.

And a very interesting sidenote about why 降 was archaically pronounced as 'hong2':

【水經注】鄭註尚書，北過降水，云：降，下江反，聲轉爲共。今河內北共山，淇水共水出焉，東至魏郡黎陽，入河，近所謂降水也。周時國於此地者，惡言降，故攺爲共耳。

From the book 《水经注》 : There is a sentence in the book 《尚书》( annotated by Zheng), "march north across the River of 降", on which Zheng annotated: 降, originally pronounced as 'xiang2', but later changed to 'hong2'。 With regard to the River of 降, today there is Mount Hong to the north of Henei, from which the River of Qi and the River of Hong originate. They flow to the east till Liyang in Wei County and into the Yellow River. The branch close to the confluence was originally called the River of Xiang. In Zhou Dynasty, (possibly because of constant flood), people around this area hated to call the name 'Xiang', thus changed its pronunciation to hong2.

[ImBmen]

I gree with Hanlink ,when you use 降 to express a downward trend,it's pronounced as jiang，降(jiang)落，升降(jiang)机，and it's pronounced xiang when it means tame or surrender.降(xiang)服，投降(xiang).so it's more like jiang means move downward physically and xiang means move downward mentally.