5.4.2 PKS -i and -e
Thurgood posits two front vowels in PKS, -i and -e, corresponding directly to -i and -e in modern Kam- Sui languages. However, -i is poorly attested and very rarely does it occur consistently across the Kam-
Sui dialects. This led Liang and Zhang to question its place in the PTK inventory at all, as with -u discussed in section 5.4.1. In Thurgood’s list of PKS etyma, he includes only two cases of PKS -i, ‘earth’
di
B
an old Chinese loan and ‘tired’ ʔni⁵ which has -e reflexes in Kam, Mulam, Mak and some Sui
dialects. In contrast, he gives sixteen words, many well-attested across Kam-Sui, with PKS -e. Unlike Thurgood, Peiros 1998:43 reconstructs only PKS -e and does not reconstruct PKS -i, indicating that
all cases of -i in modern Sui developed secondarily. We found only two cases of -i occurring in all Sui dialects, ‘small’
ti³ which, as far as we know does not occur in Kam or Maonan and ‘field cricket’
ki³ which does not occur in Kam, Maonan or Then. Other occurrences of -i either: 1 correspond to -e, -
əi, -ui or aːi in Kam and Yang’an Sui; 2 only occur in a limited number of Sui dialects for example ‘to consider’
n̥i³, found only in Sandong dialect, ‘to scold’ si⁶, found only in Eastern, Southern and Pandong dialects, and ‘to listen’ ʔdi³, not found in Yang’an
dialect; or 3 are Chinese loanwords for example ‘two’ ȵi⁶
二 EMC
ɲi
C
, ‘ground, earth’ ti⁶
地 EMC
di
C
, ‘glutinous rice cake’ ɕi²
糍 EMC dzi
A
, ‘to ride’ tsi⁶
騎 EMC
ɡi
C
, and ‘table’ hi³
幾 EMC
k ɣi
B
. On the other hand there are numerous examples of words which consistently bear -e rimes across Kam-Sui, for example ‘to do’
he⁴, ‘to have’ me² in Sui this word means ‘not’, ‘below’ te³, ‘to chop’ te⁵, ‘sand’
ⁿde¹, ‘writing’ le¹, ‘mark’ ʔme¹ as in ‘to know, recollect’ ɣo⁴ ʔme¹, ‘to sell’ pe¹ and ‘to pull up weeds’ ne².
Thus a similar development to the one hypothesised above for -u is also possible for front vowels, i.e., large scale borrowing of Chinese words with -i rimes, coupled with PKS diphthongs with -i offglides
monophthongising to -i, initiating a chain shift in which PKS -i moved down to -e to maintain phonemic contrast.
Correspondences for Thurgood’s PKS -e for which we suggest -i and - uːi sometimes also
showing -i or -e reflexes are given in table 5.44. PKS -i ours has lowered to -e far more often in Southern Sui than in other dialects, particularly when preceded by palatals, supporting a Southern Sui
subgrouping. PKS - uːi is usually retained in all dialects e.g., ‘to descend’ hlui
B
lui⁵; ‘stream’ kruːi
C
kui³; and ‘snake’ dzuːi
A
hui²; ‘bear’, ‘snow’ and ‘to swim’ in table 5.44 are exceptions. The slight velarisation combined with -i in ‘left’
sˠi⁴ and ‘fire’ pˠi¹ BL appears to correspond to -əi an allophone of ai after labials and alveolars and is perhaps in free variation with it, cf. ‘to get’
lˠi³ BL,
ʔdɜi³ or ʔdəi³ Sandong. In the case of ‘fire’, it could originate in pui¹ i.e., pui pɯi pˠi.
Table 5.44. PKS -e, - uːi and similar words. -aːi reflexes indicated by double lines,
words with -e or - ˠi shaded in grey
Sandong Pandong
Yang’an Kam
Central Southern
Gloss PKS
SD JQ
SY PD
JL TN
BL ‘to sell’
kwe
A
pɛ¹ qɛ¹
qɛ¹ pe¹
pæ¹ pɛ¹
pɛ¹ pe¹
‘mark’ ʔme
A
ʔmɛ¹ ʔmɛ¹
ʔmɛ¹ me¹
mæ¹ mɛ¹
mɛ¹ me¹
‘tip’ phe
A
pʰi¹ pʰɛ¹
pʰɛ¹ pʰe¹
pʰje¹ pʰje¹ pʰje¹ pʰje¹ ‘left’
- si⁴
si⁴ sje⁴
ɕi⁴ sei⁴
si⁴ sˠi⁴
ɕe³, ȶe³ ‘dew’
- ȵi²
ȵe² ȵe²
ni² ȵi²
mɛ¹ mɛ¹
me¹ † ‘to spit’‡
- ȶi²
- ȶe²
- -
qi² -
ȵe¹ ‘to paste’
- ni²
- nje²
- -
ni² -
- ‘bear’
ʔmuːi
D
ʔmi¹ ʔmɛ¹
ʔmje¹ mi¹ mi¹
mi¹ mi¹
me¹ ‘snow’
ʔnuːi
A
ʔnui¹ ʔni¹
ʔnje¹ noi¹
noi¹ nui¹
nui¹ nui¹, ni¹
‘trace’ hruːi
A
ŋɡui² ɣi¹
- -
- ɣui²
ŋɡui² wui² ‘shame’‡
- ʔui¹
- ʔȵi¹
- -
lui¹ -
- ‘to swim’
- lui²
ɣi¹ ɣi¹
hwaːi¹ faːi¹ faːi²
faːi² waːi² §
‘far’ klaːi
C
ʔdi¹ -
qaːi¹ ⁿdi¹
ⁿdi¹ ljaːi¹ kaːi¹
kaːi¹, ljaːi¹
‘to borrow’
- ʔdi⁵ AT -
- -
ȶiɛ⁵ ljaːi⁵ -
- ‘spoon’
- ʔbjaːi⁵
ʔbjaːi⁵ ʔbjaːi⁵ ᵐbi⁵ vi⁵
- -
- ‘a pity’
- ʔmai⁵
ʔmai⁵ ʔmai⁵ mai⁵ mai⁵ mi⁵
mi⁵ mi⁵
‘fire’ pwai
A
vi¹ ɥi¹
v i¹
ɥi¹ vi¹
vi¹ pˠi¹
pui¹ † Means ‘frost’ in Kam.
‡ From author’s field notes. § Standard Southern Kam. Other dialect variants include lui² and li².
The - aːi or -ai -i alternation seen in ‘to swim’, ‘far’, ‘to borrow’, ‘spoon’ and ‘a pity’ is similar to
the other half of “Gedney’s puzzle” see section 5.4.1 above, in which an intermediate diphthong in PKS, such as
əi, may have lowered and lengthened to -aːi in some dialects and monophthongised to -i in others. Unfortunately we were unable to find any other examples. Liang and Zhang reconstruct PTK
i̯əi for ‘far’ and
u̯ɔi for ‘to swim’ and ‘trace’. Similar -i, -e, -ei ai, -
əi ai and -ui alternations are found in Chinese loanwords; examples are given in table 5.45. Tables 5.44 and 5.45 show two things: 1 Southern Sui has undergone -i -e more
routinely than other dialects; and 2 Yang’an dialect is perhaps the most similar to Kam.
Table 5.45. Some -i correspondences in Chinese loanwords. Words with -e or -ai shaded in grey Sandong
Pandong Yang’an Kam
Central Eastern Southern
Gloss EMC
SD DJ
JQ SW
JL BL
‘to untie’ 解
kɛːj
B
tsi⁵ ȶi⁵
tsi⁵ ȶi⁵
tsei⁵ ȶi⁵
- ‘to ride’
騎 ɡi
C
ȶi⁶ ȶi⁶
tsi⁶ ȶe⁶
tsei⁶ ȶi⁶
ȶi² ‘generation’†
世 ɕiaj
C
si ⁵
- -
sje⁵ -
- -
‘on behalf of’† 替
t ʰiaj
C
tʰi⁵ -
- tʰje⁵ -
tʰi⁵ tʰi⁵
‘mother’ 女
nai
B
ni⁴ ni⁴
ni⁴ ni⁴
ni⁴ nɜi⁴
nəi⁴ ‘skin’
皮 biə̆
A
pi² pi²
- -
pi² pəi²
pi² ‘fat animals’
肥 buj
A
pi² pi²
pi² pi²
fi² pui²
pəi² † From author’s own field notes
5.4.3 PKS -e and -ai partial merger in Tangzhou TZ