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 In Yang’an dialect, this word has been replaced by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
There are some semantic differences due to differences in the physical environment. For example, there are no large rivers in or near JL Pandong dialect region. Therefore JL does not have the word
ʔnja¹ for ‘river’. It only has the word
kui³, used in all Sui dialects for ‘stream’. The only way of referring to a river in JL is by referring to it as a ‘large stream’
kui³ laːu⁴. Similarly, JL Sui do not have the habit of drying grain on large mats made of dried grass. These mats are called
ʔbin³ in other Sui dialects. Thus, in order to refer to a grass mat, JL uses the word
tjim⁴ ja¹, literally ‘mat’+‘wild grass’. Other dialects use tjem⁴ cognate with JL’s tjim⁴ to refer specifically to a ‘bamboo mat’ commonly used to sleep on.
Many Sui areas do not grow ‘spinach’ or ‘arrowhead’ a vegetable similar to spinach and they use a loanword
ʔma¹ po³ tsʰaːi¹ from ʔma¹ ‘vegetable’ + Chinese 菠菜
‘spinach’ to refer to both of these two
vegetables. However, TP, JR, DJ, TN and BL do grow ‘arrowhead’ and use an indigenous Sui word ȶʰiu³
to refer to it. By extension, these places often use ȶʰiu³ to refer to ‘spinach’ too.
Similar cases can be found in such words as ‘taro’ ʔɣaːk⁷ or ȶe⁴ hui², ‘Chinese chives’ ŋam² or qə⁰
ȶu³ and ‘coriander’ ʔma¹ zui¹ or ʔma¹ laːŋ¹, for which apparently different varieties of similar vegetables have different Sui words. Rarely are both words used in the same location. ‘Chives’ is an exception - both
the words ŋam² and qə⁰ ȶu³ are in use in some places. Our wordlist elicitation procedures were not
rigorous enough to uncover all of these slight semantic differences, especially with words for plants and animals.
Some locations have preserved an old Sui word for ‘log raft’, za² JQ, ZH and JL, probably because rafts are still in use in these locations. Other Sui areas used a compound
paːi² mai⁴ or similar, literally meaning ‘row of tree trunks’. Similarly, the older Sui word for boat,
lwa¹, appears to have dropped out of usage in some areas for example PD and JR, being replaced by a Chinese loan su
ən² or ɕon² see Stanford 2011. Again, this could be due to a lapse of many centuries in using this particular mode of
transport in these particular locations. Finally, a fascinating study can be made of the Sui words used to designate other minority groups
who live in and around the Sui area exonyms. The word miu¹ or ʔmiu in Southern Sui is universally
used to refer to the Miao people. In some locations e.g., SY and JQ, this word is also applied to the Yao. In other mostly Central and Western Sui areas, the Chinese loanword
jaːu² or jaːu⁴ from 瑶族
‘Yao nationality’ is used, either on its own or modifying the word
miu¹. RL and SJ, both situated in close proximity to a Yao minority township, use an entirely different word to refer to the Yao,
ka⁴ paːŋ⁵, which may be related to the specific branch of Yao who live in this area in contrast with the Yao
ʔmiu¹ who live in and around SY. The Kam people are almost universally referred to as
kam¹ in Sui, the same as the Kam’s own autonym, reflecting the close relationship of these two people groups. Fascinatingly, the
Yang’an Sui whom we believe to have descended from a branch of Kam appear to have no indigenous word for the Kam. Instead, they use an old Chinese loanword
toŋ⁶ it cannot be a recent loan due to the tone category, sometimes in conjunction with the word
miu¹ ‘Miao’. They refer to themselves as the sui³ kam¹ ‘Kam-like Sui’ see chapter 3, section 3.3.1.
6.5.4 SD and JQ: A lexical and semantic crossover region
