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
Sui has undergone minimal further tone splitting or merging. In fact, we find no evidence at all for tone splitting which is a common innovation in Kam, usually induced by aspiration on voiceless onsets and
only a couple of cases of recent tone merging in Jiaoli JL, Pandong dialect and Shuiyao SY, Southern subdialect.
4.4.1 Merger of entering tones in Jiaoli JL, Pandong
Among young speakers in Jiaoli JL, rimes with long vowels and -k coda appear to have dropped the -k coda entirely, resulting in a merger of Tone 7 with Tone 5 the open syllable tone with a pitch pattern
closest to Tone 7 and Tone 8 with Tone 2 again, the open syllable tone with contour pitch values most closely matching original Tone 8. Older speakers appear to retain -k, usually in the form of a final
glottal stop, although this seems to have been dropped entirely on a few words. Examples are given in table 4.14. ‘Grandchild’ and ‘spine’ show that even though -ʔ is retained by older speakers on
monosyllabic words uttered in isolation, it is often dropped during free speech on disyllabic words. Table 4.14. Loss of stop codas and merging of checked tones with -k with tones on
open syllables in Jiaoli JL Gloss
PKS SD
JL old speaker
JL young speaker
‘son’ laːk
D
laːk⁸ laːʔ⁸
la² ‘grandchild’
laːk
D
khlaːn
A
laːk⁸ haːn¹ la² haːn¹
‘bone’ tlaːk
D
laːk⁷ laːʔ⁷
la⁵ ‘spine’
tlaːk
D
hlaːi
A
laːk⁷ laːi¹ la⁵ laːi¹
‘armpit’ khjaːk
D
haːk⁷ haːʔ⁷
ha⁵ ‘puckery’
- qʰaːt⁷
kʰa⁵ ‘to exchange’
hlik
D
liːk⁷ liɛʔ⁷
liɛ⁵ ‘full’
tiːk
D
tiːk⁷ tiɛ⁵
‘fine sand’ -
hiːk⁷ hi⁵
We occasionally noticed -k -ʔ among younger speakers in other Sui regions, but Jiaoli JL seemed to be the only place where the glottal stop has disappeared entirely. An identical phenomenon
has also occurred in most dialects of Northern Kam. It may not be a coincidence that both Sui speakers
in Jiaoli JL and Northern Kam speakers are in close contact with Qiandong Miao speakers. In Qiandong Miao, all stop finals have been lost Zhang Yongxiang 1990. In fact our Jiaoli district data point,
Gaorong village, was the only village in the Jiaoli region where people still speak Sui. In Sui villages surrounding Jiaoli, people have switched to speaking Miao as their first language L1.
7
4.4.2 Merger of Tones 7 and 8 in Shuiyao SY, Southern
A merger of Tones 7 and 8 on rimes with short vowels has taken place in Shuiyao. Examples are given in table 4.15. Rimes with long vowels, however, retain phonemic contrast between these two tones, for
example ‘rope’ laːk⁷ and ‘child’ laːk⁸. This merger has not taken place in other Southern Sui lects.
Table 4.15. Merger of Tones 7 and 8 in Shuiyao Gloss
PKS JQ
SY ‘dark, black’
- hop⁷
xəp⁷ ‘to blow’
dzup
D
hop⁸ xəp⁷
‘to hurt’ -
ȶiːt⁷ ȶit⁷
‘to bite’ -
ȶiːt⁸ ȶit⁷
‘to exchange’ hlik
D
liːk⁷ lik⁷
‘strength’ -
ljək⁸ lik⁷
‘flea’ k-hmat
D
m̥ɐt⁷ m̥ɐt⁷
‘savoury, with just the right amount of salt’
- mɐt⁸
mɐt⁷
4.5 Sui “voiced-high” tone value distinctiveness: An areal feature
