Modern Cantonese Phonology

611 Pages·1997·19.294 MB·English

by  Robert S. Bauer, Paul K. Benedict

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 mono-
graphs ; 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 mechan-
ical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, with-
out 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