Anyone knows anything about Min Nan/Hokkien?

[Qwynegold]

I have added Pe̍h-ōe-jī to these pages, but am unsure about how correct the vowels and tones are:
http://www.frathwiki.com/Dot_Above_Right
http://www.frathwiki.com/Acute_Accent
http://www.frathwiki.com/Grave_Accent
http://www.frathwiki.com/Circumflex
http://www.frathwiki.com/Macron
http://www.frathwiki.com/Vertical_Line_Above
I just chose the dialect in Taipei for illustrating the tones, but these two pages disagree about what they are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkien#Tones and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_Hokkien#Tones. I also wonder which vowels can have which tones. It seems like at least the oral ɔ can't have tone 8. Oh, and when they write tones like 44, instead of just 4, does that have any significance? Does it mean that the vowel is longer?

[Nortaneous]

convention in asian linguistics to write 11 22 33 44 55 instead of 1 2 3 4 5, yeah. doesn't mean anything afaik

[zompist]

FWIW, Jerry Norman has these tonal values for Xiamen, which are close to Taipei's. (He doesn't list Taipei.)

ping: 55, 24
shang: 51
qu: 11, 33
ru: 32, 55

I think the doubled numbers are used to make it clear that these are tonal contours, not tone numbers.

[Qwynegold]

convention in asian linguistics to write 11 22 33 44 55 instead of 1 2 3 4 5, yeah. doesn't mean anything afaik

I think the doubled numbers are used to make it clear that these are tonal contours, not tone numbers.

Oh, okay. There was one table on some page where it looked like they were contrasting doubled and single digits.

FWIW, Jerry Norman has these tonal values for Xiamen, which are close to Taipei's. (He doesn't list Taipei.)

ping: 55, 24
shang: 51
qu: 11, 33
ru: 32, 55

Thanks! Maybe I'll replace Taipei with Xiamen.

[Abun]

Hokkien is my field of study actually, although not my native language.

As for the "Rising" ect. tones:
The problem with this sort of categorization is problematic in English because the terms "Level, Rising, Falling" can mean two things: 1. The actual contour of the tones, for example 1st tone (陽平) is a high level tone in both Mandarin and Hokkien (at least the dialects I know of and in non-sandhi position). 2. The Middle Chinese tone categories which are called píng 平, shǎng 上, qù 去 in Mandarin (pênn/pînn, sióng, khì/khìr in Hokkien), and which zompist used above. These probably once actually described level, rising and falling contour but their pronunciation has changed over the last roughly 1500, so a "level" tone doesn't necessarily have a level contour (for (Taiwanese) Hokkien for example the shǎng tone has a falling contour). In most languages you also find a split into higher (yīn/im 陰) and lower (yáng/iûnn 陽) register for each tone The categories are still quite useful however because they allow comparison of Tones across the Chinese languages. For example in Mandarin you have:


píng: 55 (yīn), 35 (yáng)
shǎng: 214
qù: 51

So in Mandarin the high and low registers in shǎng and qù merged and the fourth category rù (入, usually translated as "entering") disappeared completely and the syllables that belonged to this category were scattered rather randomly among the others (not completely randomly but the pattern is rather complicated). For Xiamenese and Taiwanese Hokkien on the other hand, you have what zompist posted above with the left numbers in each row corresponding to yīn, the right ones to yáng (the pitch values vary slightly from town to town of course). So in Taiwanese Hokkien (and most other dialects too) there is only one shǎng tone, i.e. yīn shǎng because yáng shǎng merged with yáng qù, but the rest is retained. This knowledge helps predicting tones. For example, you can say with 100% certainty that a word which is yīn píng in Hokkien will be yīn píng (1st tone) in Mandarin, too, and same with yáng píng.

Anyways bottom line: That the "rising" tone marked with acute in POJ is actually falling is because this "rising" means shǎng category, not the actual contour. Afaik it isn't rising in any Hokkien dialect, although I believe it's high level in some.

convention in asian linguistics to write 11 22 33 44 55 instead of 1 2 3 4 5, yeah. doesn't mean anything afaik

Single numbers are used for the above-mentioned rù ("entering") category. These tones always co-occur with a final stop ([p, t, k, ʔ]) and are "cut short" by it. Therefore they don't have much of a contour but are differentiated by pitch (at least in those languages where there are still two entering tones). Because of this and the short duration, they are often marked with a single syllable, so in zompist's table above, one could also have written:

ru: 3, 5

[Qwynegold]

convention in asian linguistics to write 11 22 33 44 55 instead of 1 2 3 4 5, yeah. doesn't mean anything afaik

Single numbers are used for the above-mentioned rù ("entering") category. These tones always co-occur with a final stop ([p, t, k, ʔ]) and are "cut short" by it. Therefore they don't have much of a contour but are differentiated by pitch (at least in those languages where there are still two entering tones). Because of this and the short duration, they are often marked with a single syllable, so in zompist's table above, one could also have written:

ru: 3, 5

Aha, thanks! But one question that hasn't been answered yet, is "which vowel qualities co-occur with which 'tones'?" Because it seems that at least rù doesn't go together with all vowels.

[Abun]

But one question that hasn't been answered yet, is "which vowel qualities co-occur with which 'tones'?" Because it seems that at least rù doesn't go together with all vowels.

Closed o (which I realize as [ɤ] btw) is generally incompatible with closed syllables (except for final glottal stop) or nasalization. If I try them in combination with glottal stop, I can think of words for each of the unnasalized vowels in both tones except [ɔ] in yáng rù (8th tone), although for some combinations all I can think of are Japanese loanwords which are likely exclusive to Taiwanese (for example la-tsí-ooh < ラジオ). For the nasalized Vowels I can't think of anything for "-annh" in yáng rù or "-unnh" in any tone ("-aunnh" exists, though, at least in yáng rù). I can also think of words with syllabic /ŋ/ as a vowel in both tones. For syllabic /m/ all I can find is interjections which I would tend to see as not necessarily bound by the normal tones. For rù tones in /-p, -t, -k/ the constraints are the same as for syllables with nasal final /-m, -n, -ŋ/. There's dozens of possible combinations, so it'd take a while to go through them all and try to come up with words (or even look them up)^^'

I consider the gaps coincidental instead of sytemic, though. Don't see why a syllable like "tannh" should pose a problem; in theory the phonetical constraints on syllables with final glottal stop are the same as open syllables and "tann" is no problem at all. For all I know the next loanword could end in [ãʔ³] and close the gap.

[svld]

If I try them in combination with glottal stop, I can think of words for each of the unnasalized vowels in both tones except [ɔ] in yáng rù (8th tone)

It seems like "膜" is in yáng rù (it's nasalized though).

http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/i ... level1.jsp
You can search by tone of Taiwanese here.

[Abun]

It seems like "膜" is in yáng rù (it's nasalized though).

Exactly, that's why I didn't count it as an oral [ɔʔ]

http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/i ... level1.jsp
You can search by tone of Taiwanese here.

I did use that one for the glottal stop syllables. I just thought it too much effort for not completely reliable data (because this dictionary sadly isn't all that extensive, so no hits doesn't at all mean that there exists no word for that final) to do that for all the finals. One would have to first compile a list of all the possible rù rhymes and then in turn search for each one in both tones after all. I tried a list below but I probably forgot one or two at least. I marked the ones where I think there is a systemical gaps in red, in blue if I am not completely sure but think there's a gap. Where I can't immediately think of a word in any of the two rù tones but it doesn't sound off to me, I'll use yellow:

Oral vowels:
-ah, -ap, -at, -ak
-eh, -ep, -et, -ek | /-et/ doesn't exist for sure because /-iat/ is sometimes pronounced that way and there's no misunderstandings. /-ek/ doesn't exist (possibly has merged with /-ik/, at least that's what a Hokkien speaker would hear).
-ih, -ip, -it, -ik | /-ik/ is realized as [iək] in many dialects
-iah, -iap, -iak, -iat | /-iat/ is realized as [iɜt] in Taiwan and is with increasing frequency becoming [ɜt]
-iauh, -iaup, -iauk, -iaut | medial after the main vowel + final consonant (except [ʔ]) is illegal
-ioh, -iop, -iok, -iot
-iooh | as mentioned before, /o/ and /ɔ/ don't contrast in closed syllables (again except for final [ʔ]). I classed the syllables in question together with <o> for orthographical reasons (those syllables are spelt with <o> (/o/), not <oo> (/ɔ/) to save a letter)
-iuh, -iup, -iuk, -iut
-oh, -op, -ot, -ok
-ooh
-uh, -up, -ut, -uk | I wouldn't be puzzled by hearing /-up/ but I can't find a word with it and neither with /-um/, so it may be a gap.
-uah, -uap, -uat, -uak | /-uap/ is the same case as with /-up/. For /-uak/ I can't find anything immediately but /-uaŋ/ definitely exists so there shouldn't be a systemic gap here if you ask me.
-uaih, -uaip, -uait, -uaik | don't know anything with /-uaih/ but that may be for historical reasons: final glottal stop in most cases (except interjections, onomatopoeia ect.) developed from final /-p, -t, -k/ which were incompatible with medials after the main vowel. For that reason, /uai/+/p, t, k/ is definitely not possible.
-uih, -uip, -uit, -uik

Nasal Vowels (a bit less because these can only occur with final [ʔ]):
-annh
-ennh
-innh
-iannh
-iaunnh | triphthongs are generally not compatible very well with nasalization (because nasalization developed from a final nasal consonant which could not co-occur with medials after the main vowel). However I can think of at least one word with -iaunn without the glottal stop (the omatopoeion which the MoE spells 喓), so I think the gap is probably not systemic
-ionnh | if it exists outside of interjections ect., it probably doesn't contrast with /-iunnh/ because /-ionn/ is an allophone of /iunn/
-iunnh
-onnh | as mentioned, nasalized closed /õ/ doesn't exist
-unnh | both unnasalized /-uh/ and /-unn/ without the final exist, so there is no reason why this one should be against phonetic rules
-uannh | again, both /-uah/ and /uann/ exist
-uainnh
-uinnh | both /-uih/ and /-uinn/ exist

There are some additional vowels in other dialects: Quanzhou 泉州 dialect has /ɯ/ (merged with either /u/ or /i/ in the others) and /ə/ (in others this one has merged with /ue/. Zhangzhou 漳州 distinguishes /ɛ/ and /e/. Of all these I can't say anything from first-hand experience. All of them definitely can occur in open syllables, so there should be no systemical gaps with final glottal stop. However such syllables may be rare in practice because I believe most of them are largely incompatible with final /p, t, k/, which the glottal stop is derived from. I know /ɯ/ occurs with /-n/ final (e.g. 銀, Q: gîrn), so it might also occur with /-t/ but I can't give an example. /ə/ most likely is incompatible with closed syllables (glottal stop may be an exception again) and with /ɛ/ I can't think of any examples, either, although it might not impossible from what I see.