distinguish between ‘to know a person’ ɣo⁴ and ‘to know a fact’ ɕau³ an old Chinese loan. Finally,
most Sandong dialects have a word for ‘to ascend’ sa⁵ and ‘to descend’ lui⁵. Yang’an BL speakers do not
use these words; rather, they say ‘to go up’ paːi¹ ʔu¹ and ‘to come down’ taŋ¹ te³ in lieu.
6.5.2 Semantic shift due to lexical replacement
Direct lexical replacement is relatively rare. One possible case is kaŋ¹ most Sui dialects ‘grass’, referring
to the type of grass that grows near the paddies and is given to oxen to eat. In Yang’an dialect, this word has been replaced by
ȵ̥aːŋ³. All other Sui dialects use ȵ̥aːŋ³ to refer specifically to the top of rice stalks left over after the rice has been harvested. For the latter meaning, Yang’an uses either
mjaːŋ² ȵ̥aːŋ³ ‘lit. ear of grass’ TN or
qaːŋ¹ BL. Another apparent example of semantic shift is the word
kiŋ³. This means ‘beautiful’ in all Sui dialects apart from Southern Sui, where it means ‘clever’. Southern Sui has replaced
kiŋ³ with qʰan⁵ to mean ‘beautiful’. Various other words are used in non-Southern Sui areas for ‘clever’, for example
ɕai¹ which specifically means ‘well-behaved’ in Southern Sui,
ʔdjup⁷ and hut⁷. Pandong dialect has several examples of lexical replacement. JL Pandong dialect has replaced the
word tap⁷ with hum¹ ‘liver’. In all other Sui dialects, hum¹ or ɕum¹ means ‘heart’. JL says hum¹ ju⁶ for
‘heart’, thereby classifying ‘heart’ as a type of internal organ related to the liver. In PD, pin² is used instead of
ᵐbjum¹ for ‘to love’. The latter word, pronounced in PD as mjum², has replaced the usual Sandong word
ʔan⁵ for ‘to miss sb.’. Sandong dialects have two words for ‘to look’: 1
qau⁵ ‘to look at, to watch’; and 2 maːŋ⁶ pronounced
mjaːŋ⁶ or mjeŋ⁶ in Southern Sui ‘to look from a distance, to gaze’. PD has replaced both of these with
h̃o⁵, covering both senses. Eastern Sui RL, SJ seems to have retained Sandong’s maːŋ⁶ for ‘to gaze’ but has also borrowed
mjaːŋ⁶ from Southern Sui. The meaning of mjaːŋ⁶ has shifted to mean ‘to face upward’. Southern Sui and Yang’an dialect generally use
ʔŋaːŋ³ for ‘to face upward’, Sandong Central, Western generally uses
ʔŋwa³. Some Southern Sui varieties use ʔŋwa³ in the sense of ‘to suddenly raise the head’ or ‘to jerk upwards’.
A particularly fascinating case of lexical replacement is found in SY Southern, relating to the words for ‘latrine’ and ‘prison’. All Sui dialects, including Southern Sui, use the word
laːu² for ‘prison’. This is an old Chinese loanword from ‘pen, fold, prison’
牢 EMC law
A
. Most Sui dialects use kʰuŋ³ the
same word as ‘chicken coop’, often adding a modifier qe⁴ ‘excrement’, for ‘latrine’. SY, however, has
replaced this with laːu² for ‘latrine’, borrowed from the same Chinese word as ‘prison’. Due to the
resulting homophony with ‘prison’, the lexical tone on the word ‘prison’ has changed to tone 4 in SY, viz. laːu⁴.
Finally, an example of shift in usage can be found in the word ɕuŋ¹ ‘to boil’ and saːu³ ‘to fry’. All
dialects use ɕuŋ¹ ‘to boil’ with ʔau⁴ ‘rice’ in the phrase ɕuŋ¹ ʔau⁴ ‘to cook lit. boil rice’. In non-Southern
Sui dialects, ɕuŋ¹ is also used as a general word for ‘to cook’ in the phrases ɕuŋ¹ naːn⁴ ‘to cook food lit. to
boil meat’ or ɕuŋ¹ ʔaːm³ ‘to cook lit. to boil dishes’. In Southern Sui, however, saːu³ is used as a general
word for ‘to cook’ in the phrase saːu³ ʔaːm³ ‘to cook lit. to fry dishes’. Southern Sui uses a different
word, kʰaːŋ¹, for the specific sense of ‘to fry’. In other Sui dialects, kʰaːŋ¹ means ‘to roast on a stick’. The
latter meaning is conveyed with the word xaːŋ¹ in Southern Sui.
6.5.3 Semantic differences due to differences in physical environment
