Guangxi, which preserves both the yīn tone and the voiceless onset unlike other Taic languages such as
Thai, Zhuang and Lao, which all exhibit yáng tones on these words. Southern Sui, in common with Maonan and Mak, bears
yīn tones on these words, indicating that it underwent devoicing on the initial hr- at a different point in time than the other dialects, after the Great
Tone Split had already taken place see also Thurgood 1988:191.
4.3.4 Summary
Table 4.10 shows the key sound changes which may have led to divergent tonal developments in Yang’an and other Sui dialects. It is immediately apparent that the tone differences are largely due to
identical sound changes occurring at different points of time in relation to the Great Tone Split. Table 4.11 presents the same data arranged by individual sound change, noting the timing of each sound
change in relation to the Great Tone Split along with the data table which illustrates each sound change.
Table 4.10. Timing of key sound changes in relation to the Great Tone Split PKS forms are Thurgood’s unless stated otherwise
Kam and Yang’an Sui other Sui
b ef
or e G
re at
T on
e S p
li t
hl- l- kⁿs- Ferlus n.s- ours
C.m- ours m- C.z- ours z- ours
m.pr- mj- C.n- ours n-
hŋl- ŋl- hr-
ɣ- non-Southern hr-
ɣ- m.pr- mj- Western, Pandong
af te
r G re
at T
on e S
p li
t kⁿs- Ferlus sl- s- Kam, l- Yang’an hl- l-
C.z- ours ɕ- Kam, z-ts- Yang’an
C.m- ours m- C.n- ours n-
m.pr- ᵐbj- SDZH, Eastern,
Southern hŋl- ŋl-
n.s- ours s- h- z- s-
hr- ɣ- Southern
Table 4.11. Key sound changes and their timing in relation to the Great Tone Split grey shading indicates that the sound change in question occurred before the Great Tone Split
Sound change Yang’an Pandong and Western
Central SD, ZH, Southern and
Eastern Examples
hl- l- before
after after
Table 4.3 hŋl- ŋl-
before after
after Table 4.6
C.m- ours m- before
after after
Table 4.7 hr-
ɣ- before
before after Southern
Table 4.10 before rest
m.pr- mj- before
before Table 4.7
m.pr- ᵐbj-
after Table 4.7
C.z- ours z-dz- after after
before Table 4.8
C.n- ours n- after
before before
Table 4.5 kⁿs- Ferlus sl-
after Table 4.4
kⁿs- Ferlus n.s- before
before Table 4.4
4.3.5 Discussion
Several scholars, including Edmondson and Yang 1988, Shi and Cui 1988, Wang Dewen 1988, Thurgood 1988 and Ferlus 1996, have observed the contrasting
yīn-yáng tone alternations in Sui, Mak, Ai-Cham and Maonan versus Kam, Then and Mulam which we have surveyed thus far. None,
however, have observed the fact that the Yang’an dialect of Sui universally agrees with Kam, Then and Mulam in its
yīn-yáng alternations. Zeng Xiaoyu 1994:30, 49, 51, 84 notes that Yang’an occasionally exhibits yáng tones where the other Sui dialects exhibit
yīn tones but she does not offer any coherent explanation and in most cases simply says that they are “sporadic exceptions”. Our research shows that
far from being “sporadic exceptions”, Yang’an’s tonal distinctives are completely consistent with Kam and are a result of the common timing of the Great Tone Split in relation to onset innovations shared by
both Yang’an Sui and Kam.
Shi and Cui 1988:83 propose that words which exhibit contrasting yīn-yáng tone developments can
be used as a criterion for disambiguating the “Sui branch” viz. Sui, Maonan, Mak and Ai-cham from the rest of Kam-Sui. They suggest using the tones of ‘wind’ and ‘water’ see tables 4.2 and 4.6 above: “if
these words appear with tones 1 or 3, then they belong to the secondary Sui branch; if they have tones 2 or 4, then they are Kam.” Under this criterion, Yang’an Sui belongs to Kam.
An important principle for subgrouping dialects or languages is that, in Thurgood’s 1982:251 words, “the less likely the [phonological] change, the less likely that the change occurred more than
once.” Given the relatively complex changes in Proto-Kam-Sui onsets which led to these divergent voiced or voiceless onset induced tone splits, probably occurring at different points in time during the history of
the Kam-Sui languages, we suggest that Yang’an Sui is genetically more closely affiliated with Kam than with the other Sui dialects. Note that we are not proposing a dialect continuum in which Yang’an Sui lies
between Sui and Kam but is closer to Kam. The geography does not permit such an explanation: the Yang’an region is to the west of the Central Sui area whereas Kam speakers live to the east. Rather, it is
likely that Yang’an dialect descended from Kam speakers who migrated to the Yang’an area and subsequently acquired a Sui identity. Although Yang’an dialect does share some phonetic features with
other varieties of Sui, these can all be shown to be later developments see section 4.5 of this chapter and section 5.7 of chapter 5.
To demonstrate the close affinity of Yang’an Sui with Kam in terms of tone categories, we calculated the percentage of cognate words in four varieties of Sui and three varieties of Kam which share the same
yīn high or yáng low post-tone-split tone register of identical Proto-Kam-Sui tone categories. The results are shown in table 4.12. Yang’an dialect is 98 tonally similar to Southern Kam Chejiang,
whereas it is only 90.8 similar to Sandong Sui. It clearly groups with Kam. On the other hand, Pandong clearly groups with Sandong Sui despite the occasional word agreeing in tonal category with Yang’an Sui
and Kam.
Table 4.12. Yīn-yáng tone similarity percentages comparing cognates only;
percentages over 95 shaded in grey Sui
Kam
SD C
en tr
al
J Q
So u
th er
n
P D
P an
d on
g
T N
Y an
g an
C h
ej ia
n g
So u
th er
n
Y an
d on
g So
u th
er n
Su i
JQ Southern 98.3
PD Pandong 96.4
95.2 TN Yang’an
90.8 89.0
91.7
K am
Chejiang Southern
88.4 86.6
90.0 98.0
Yandong Southern
87.5 86.0
89.8 96.6
98.3 Shuidong
Northern 86.9
85.1 86.7
95.8 95.4
95.0 We should point out that the dialects of Kam itself are remarkably internally consistent in terms of
yīn-yáng tone alternations. Other tonal splits and mergers have taken place in some Kam dialects, such as aspirated onset-induced tone splits and the merger of ‘entering’ tones on checked syllables with various
tones on unchecked syllables due to the loss of -k finals in Northern Kam. These tonal developments, however, all occurred at a later stage. The only Kam dialect which exhibits some different
yīn-yáng tone splits is a variety of Southern Kam spoken in Dayun Rongshui county which shows a few we found
four alternations in common with Sandong Sui and different from all other Kam varieties see table 4.13.
Table 4.13. Words with matching tone categories in Sandong Sui and Dayun Kam Sui
Sandong Sui Yang’an Kam Dayun Kam rest
‘scissors’ jiu
¹ miu²
ȶu¹ mjiu², miu²
‘mushroom’ ʁa¹
qa² ka¹
la², qa², ʔa² ‘bitter’
qam¹ qam²
kam¹ qam², ʔam²
‘inside’ ʁaːu³
qaːu⁴ kaːu³
qaːu⁴, ʔaːu⁴ Yang’an Sui therefore looks remarkably like a particularly conservative variety of Kam, which
underwent the Great Tone Split at the same time as other Kam dialects but did not subsequently undergo any other tone split or mergers.
The fact that Pandong and Western Sui share some sound changes which apparently occurred at the same points of time in relation to the Great Tone Split indicate that they may have descended from a
common dialect. According to Lei and Yang 1988:80–82, Sui people in Pandong with the surname
Meng 蒙
originally came from the Yang’an area of Sandu county and those with the surname Wei 韦
originally came from the Shuilong 水龙
area of Sandu county, which is directly north of Zhonghe ZH and, at least nowadays, dialectally very close to Tangzhou TZ and Tingpai TP, Stanford 2007, and
personal communication. Even now, the Yang’an region is home not only to speakers of Yang’an dialect but also to speakers of Western Sui whose dialect is similar to Tingpai TP, Tangzhou TZ and Antang
AT varieties. Thus Pandong speakers could easily be descended from speakers of these Western Sui varieties rather than speakers of the Yang’an dialect. And given the large number of onset innovations
shared by Pandong and WesternCentral but not by Yang’an, we doubt that there is a close historical link between Yang’an and Pandong dialects. Some significant rime innovations shared by Pandong and
Tingpai TP, discussed in chapter 5 section 5.4, add weight to the hypothesis that Pandong and Western Sui are daughters of the same proto-dialect.
4.4 Tone splits and mergers
