PKS -i and -e

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