Unexpected readings of phonetic components

[imron]

Here's another one 揣 vs 端 vs 瑞.

擲 zhí (-k)

Incidentally, both ABC and Guifan dictionary list this as zhì, not zhí.

[chrix]

zhí in the TW standard...

揣 vs 端 vs 瑞.

you're forgetting 喘. There's a alternation between -ai and -an here (Schuessler suggests a relation between 揣 and 穿). OTOH, there's plenty of examples of d-/ch- initial alternations (like 單, 詹, 登). Also, r-ch alternations do occur, though somewhat less so. I guess all these different types of alternations in one group makes it quite confusing...

Edited March 4, 2010 at 01:40 PM by chrix

[imron]

Here are a few more good'uns:

惊、掠、凉

and

梳、流

[Guest realmayo]

逼 just got me.

Wenlin has an explanation -- 畐 fú (ancient *piwek) is a phonetic component in 逼 bī (ancient *piek). -- but still, I often forget this one.

[Altair]

What about 绽 (zhàn=to burst)?

These are perfectly ordinarily 偏旁 for a perfectly ordinary meaning and yet the choice of these particular elements seems very obscure. Any ideas how this character was created?

[chrix]

not meaning-wise, as it refers to seams bursting open: 衣缝脱线解开，引申为裂开.

there are a number of zh-d initial correspondences, maybe the vowel changed because there's no *zhing? But I don't have enough examples of this yet, so I can't say if this is to be expected or an exception...

[Altair]

According to Wenlin, the phonetic in 成 (chéng) is 丁(dīng). With this analogy, shouldn't the 定 in 绽 give us at least "zheng" and not "zhan"?

[chrix]

first of all, we shouldn't use Modern Mandarin forms for this. (also ch/zh are different initials, this could result in different vowels, but as I said would need to check this).

But right, I had overseen the n/ng issue. There are few alternations like that too, but I don't have enough yet to be able to discern a pattern. 绽 unfortunately is also not listed in Schuessler, but the character seems to occur in the Liji, so it's not a new addition...

I'm not too sure on 成 (chéng) is 丁(dīng), the OC forms given in Schuessler don't look too similar *geN vs. *tEN (I can't type it properly here, the vowel seems to be different too)... But I'll be glad to stand corrected....

[trien27]

I'm not too sure on 成 (chéng) is 丁(dīng)

Me, too:

丁, 程, 鄭 are all written as 정 in Korean Hangul, which is romanized as "Chŏng/Jeong", therefore using the Ancient Chinese ["Chəng"?] pronunciation and not Modern Chinese, as Ding. 成 in Korean = 성= Sŏng / "Sheong", which is somewhat based on Cantonese pronunciation of "Sing" with vowel shifts.

Is "ding" only a modern pronunciation of 成

No. You've misunderstood. I meant the phonetic of 成 could be 丁 using the Ancient Chinese pronunciation of "Chəng"?, rather than the Modern pronunciation of "Ding", otherwise 成 would be pronounced "ding" rather than "cheng" in Modern Mandarin.

Edited March 23, 2010 at 03:39 AM by trien27

[Altair]

I am not sure I understand correctly. Is "ding" only a modern pronunciation of 成, and not the pronunciation that would have been predicted given the pronunciation reconstructed for Old Chinese? Are you both saying that "cheng" or "zheng" would have been truer to the original pronunciation?

[Altair]

适 doesn't go with the other 舌's as it's 適. But that in turn has an interesting di-shi variation (here the place of articulation is still the same, so I'd call this a borderline case): 敵 適

提，题，and 是 always bugged me, since these characters come so early in study; but if a di-shi variation is okay, I guess a ti-shi variation is not too strange.

[Altair]

The traditional forms of 艺，热，势, and 亵 also seem to share 埶 yì as a phonetic, but yield yì, rè, shì, and xiè. The different initials and finals are confusing.

[trien27]

提，题，and 是

是 is normally read as "hai", in Cantonese and written as either 系 or 係 in Cantonese which was used in Ancient Chinese to mean "the opposite of NO". It is now read as "shi" in Mandarin. How other words with the same element / phonetic is read as "ti" is beyond my understanding, possibly thought cross-borrowing of different dialects?

提，题 are both read as "tai" in Cantonese, but "ti" in Modern Mandarin. 緹 is also read as "tai" in Cantonese, and as "ti" in Mandarin.

Edited March 23, 2010 at 03:47 AM by trien27

[trien27]

艺，热，势, and 亵 also seem to share 埶 yì as a phonetic, but yield yì, rè, shì, and xiè.

艺/藝 [埶 + 芸, yun] = "ngai" & 势/勢 [埶 + 力, li] = "sai" in Cantonese, so they share the same rhyme scheme in ancient times, but not in Modern Mandarin. From Japanese you can see that they use 芸, gei as in "geisha" as the simplification of 藝, so it might be correct to guess that 芸 is the semantic, while 埶 is the phonetic, which seems to be the opposite of Chinese character creation?

热/ 熱 [埶+灬, alternate form of 火, huo] = "yit" & 亵 / 褻 [埶 + 衣, yi] = "sit" in Cantonese, so they also share the same rhyme scheme in Ancient Chinese but not in Modern Mandarin.

If you pronounce 火 as huor [火 + 儿声], the -r might later have became /r[e]/ sound serving as an abbreviated sound for what was previously pronounced as "huor" might give you a clue as to why 热 / 熱 is pronounced "re" in Modern Mandarin?

势/勢 pronounced as "sai" might be a sound loan from 世, which is the only other word in Cantonese with the same sound. 世 is pronounced "shi" in Mandarin, so 势/勢 followed suit?

EDIT: I forgot 細 is also pronounced "sai" in Cantonese, but xi in Mandarin.

艺/藝 might have 埶 as a phonetic, but I believe it's "fanqie": take the first consonant of "艺/藝 ", which is "Y" add it to the last syllable of ngai, which should be "ai", therefore forming "Yai", but somehow somewhere in the process it became muddled or whatever happened and it became "Yi" which is how it's pronounced in Mandarin now.

I have not a clue about the explanation of 亵 / 褻.

Edited March 24, 2010 at 01:03 AM by trien27

[imron]

谒 vs 霭

[Hofmann]

I'm not too sure on 成 (chéng) is 丁(dīng), the OC forms given in Schuessler don't look too similar *geN vs. *tEN (I can't type it properly here, the vowel seems to be different too)...

丁 has two pronunciations: 中莖切 and 當經切. Note that the 中 initial is voiced. Voiced affricates can become aspirated or unaspirated affricates in Mandarin. As there is no [tʂʰiŋ] kind of thing in Mandarin, chéng is reasonable for 丁. ARRRGH! Where the hell did I get that? Must have not been paying attention. The 中 initial is obviously voiceless. Still, zhēng is reasonable for 丁 as the phonetic component of 成.

The traditional forms of 藝，熱，勢, and 褻 also seem to share 埶 yì as a phonetic, but yield yì, rè, shì, and xiè. The different initials and finals are confusing.

Yes, 熱 and 褻 are weird, because 埶 has no entering tone (or nasal ending), but 熱 and 褻 do. The initials are also unusual because 埶's initial is in Middle Chinese is [ŋ]. Only 藝 and 熱 resemble it with /ŋ/ and /nj/ respectively.

是 is normally read as "hai", in Cantonese and written as either 系 or 系 in Cantonese which was used in Ancient Chinese to mean "the opposite of NO". It is now read as "shi" in Mandarin. How other words with the same element / phonetic is read as "ti" is beyond my understanding, possibly thought cross-borrowing of different dialects?

I'm interested in how you get 是 as the Cantonese copula hai6. Karlgren calls Middle Chinese "Ancient Chinese." In Old Chinese, 是 means "correct," the opposite of "wrong." As chrix said, there may be some correspondences between modern Mandarin retroflex initials and ancient alveolar plosives. I think the split between alveolar plosives and what became 承紙切 in Middle Chinese was earlier than Middle Chinese.

藝/藝 [埶 + 芸, yun] = "ngai" & 勢/勢 [埶 + 力, li] = "sai" in Cantonese, so they share the same rhyme scheme in ancient times

...

熱/ 熱 [埶+灬, alternate form of 火, huo] = "yit" & 褻 / 褻 [埶 + 衣, yi] = "sit" in Cantonese, so they also share the same rhyme scheme in Ancient Chinese

Right about the same rhyme, but the method for getting it is risky. Look in rime dictionaries to be sure.

勢/勢 pronounced as "sai" might be a sound loan from 世, which is the only other word in Cantonese with the same sound. 世 is pronounced "shi" in Mandarin, so 勢/勢 followed suit?

EDIT: I forgot 細 is also pronounced "sai" in Cantonese, but xi in Mandarin.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you say maybe 世 and 勢 are 同源字. Where do you get that? (Also, 勢 and 世 are homophonous, but 細 is only homophonous with 勢 and 世 in Standard Cantonese, which merges too many initials for my tastes. You know how they say Cantonese speakers can't regularly differentiate retroflex and alveolar initials in Mandarin? Not all Cantonese speakers. )

藝/藝 might have 埶 as a phonetic, but I believe it's "fanqie": take the first consonant of "藝/藝 ", which is "Y" add it to the last syllable of ngai, which should be "ai", therefore forming "Yai", but somehow somewhere in the process it became muddled or whatever happened and it became "Yi" which is how it's pronounced in Mandarin now.

埶 and 藝 are homophonous...and monosyllabic for as long as anyone can verify. Their initial is [ŋ]. Their final was 祭三等開, which many reconstruct as something like /iɛi/. Therefore 埶 and 藝 were something like /ŋiɛi/. They have evolved differently in Cantonese and Mandarin. In Mandarin, [ŋ] initials tend to be dropped, while Cantonese tends to keep them. Modern Cantonese for these is [ŋɐi˨].

Edited March 26, 2010 at 05:58 AM by Hofmann

[Guest realmayo]

玫. Wenlin says the phonetic is 文. But 玫 doesn't sound like the other 文s I've come across so far.

[trien27]

玫. Wenlin says the phonetic is 文. But 玫 doesn't sound like the other 文s I've come across so far.

玫 = mei2, = 玉, yu4, radical + 攴/攵, pu1 = phonetic?! That's odd!!!*

玟 = min/men, but read "文", wen, most possibly due to Coco Lee's stage name 李玟 , where people don't know the proper pronunciation and used 文 as the phonetic as they see fit?

*http://www.pin1yin1.com/dict/zi/%E7%8E%AB

[imron]

全、栓

[Hofmann]

Correction: Above I said the 中 initial, i.e. the 知 initial, was voiced. That was wrong.