Middle Chinese part 2

∅(Continued from previous post)

The Middle Chinese (MC) initial consonants *l *m *n are reflected in a pretty straightforward way in our set of languages. The only things to note are:
(1) The reflex of *l in Japanese and Korean may be written as <r> (in fact, these languages don't distinguish between [r] and [l])
(2) In Japanese, the nasals are denasalized (*m>b, *n>d) in older borrowings (the so-called "Go-on" readings)

Examples:
*l
六 'six'
Mandarin: liu4
Cantonese: luk6
Japanese: roku
Korean: ryuk
Vietnamese: lục

*m
明 'bright'
Mandarin: ming2
Cantonese: ming4
Japanese: myou / mei
Korean: myeong
Vietnamese: minh

*n
男 'male'
Mandarin: nan2
Cantonese: naam4
Japanese: nan / dan
Korean: nam
Vietnamese: nam

MC *m developed an allophone *mv in some environments which becomes /m/ in Mandarin and /v/ in Vietnamese, but is otherwise identical:
*mv
文 'writing'
Mandarin: wen2
Cantonese: man4
Japanese: mon / bun
Korean: mun
Vietnamese: văn

The MC initial *ŋ has more diverse reflexes. In Mandarin and Korean it is completely dropped, becoming null /∅/ (which may leave the word with an initial glide). In Cantonese it is sometimes preserved as /ŋ/ and sometimes dropped. Japanese reflects it as /g/.

*ŋ
五 'five', 語 'language'
Mandarin: wu3, yu3
Cantonese: ng5, jyu5
Japanese: go, go
Korean: o, eo
Vietnamese: ngũ, ngữ

The peculiar MC initial *r, whose phonetic realization is not totally clear, is reflected quite differently in each of these languages:
Mandarin: /r/
Cantonese: /j/
Japanese: /n/ (early borrowings - Go-on), /z/ (late borrowings - Kan-on)
Korean: /∅/
Vietnamese: /ɲ/
Example:
*r
人 'person'
Mandarin: ren2
Cantonese: jan4
Japanese: nin / zin
Korean: in
Vietnamese: nhân

Now to create an algorithm:

Firstly, to distinguish *mv we need one language from the set {M V} and one from the set {C J K}, since in the former it becomes like a glide and in the later like a nasal. Conveniently, this allows us to distinguish *r, since M and V have unique reflexes of this sound. If we chose V, we can also distinguish *ŋ, but if we chose M we need to chose J from our second set (since C and K may also reflect *ŋ as null).

Thus we see that the possible combinations are:

1. V+C
2. V+J
3. V+K
4. M+J

The algorithm to reconstruct the MC initial is as follows:

1. If M/V has initial /m/, /n/, /l/, /r/ or /ɲ/, the MC initial is *m, *n, *l, *r (respectively)
2. If M/V has initial /w/ or /v/ and C/J/K has initial /m/ or /b/, the MC initial is *mv

For combinations #1-3:

3. If V has initial /ŋ/, the MC initial is *ŋ

For combination #4:

3. If M has null initial /∅/ and J has initial /g/, the MC initial is *ŋ

One last point: Per the last post, combinations #1-3 allow reconstruction of MC final consonants uniquely (since V preserves them). Combination #4 allows slightly incomplete reconstruction (final *m and *n are indistinguishable, but the other finals can be reconstructed).

Beginning with finals...

I'm back, after a long absence...

My latest armchair linguistics project is finding a convenient method to reconstruct Middle Chinese words using a few widely-spoken East Asian languages. According to Wikipedia, Middle Chinese (MC) was the variety of Chinese spoken in the 6th-12th centuries CE. My understanding is that most modern Chinese languages, as well as the Chinese loanwords found in vast quantities in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, derive from MC. A particularly useful tool for reconstructing MC was rhyme tables which were written in China, listing groups of rhyming words; this in conjunction with comparative evidence leads to a pretty good reconstruction. See Wikipedia for a phoneme chart for MC. Right now my goal is to find a method to reconstruct MC words using easily-accessible data, without having to check out a book from the library. I'll post one interesting tidbit now, and perhaps follow up with some posts in the near future: In MC, as in modern Chinese languages, each morpheme (unit of meaning) is monosyllabic. (In Mandarin Chinese, for instance, a word like 中国 zhōngguó 'China' is composed of two monosyllabic morphemes, 中 zhōng 'central' and 国 guó 'country'.) Each Chinese character corresponds to one such morpheme/syllable.

Each MC syllable could end in either a vowel/diphthong (I'll write this as *0) or one of six consonants, *-m *-n *-ng *-p *-k *-t. Seven characters which are reconstructed with these endings are 四 'four' 三 'three' 人 'person' 上 'above' 十 'ten' 六 'six'  一 'one', respectively.

In some modern languages these endings (MC *0 *-m *-n *-ng *-p *-k *-t) are reflected as follows (with the pronunciations of the characters 四 三 人 上 十 六  一 in parentheses)
Cantonese: 0 -m -n -ng -p -k -t (sei3 saam1 jan4 soeng5 sap6 luk6 jat1) [the numbers represent tones]
Korean: 0 -m -n -ng -p -k -l (sa sam in sang sip ryuk il)
¹Lengthens preceding vowel
It follows that either Cantonese or Korean alone can be used to reconstruct MC final consonants uniquely.

Mandarin: 0 -n -n -ng 0 0 0 (sǐ sān rén shàng shí liù yī)
Japanese: 0 -n -n 0¹ 0¹ -ku/-ki -tsu/-chi (shi san jin jou juu roku ichi)
With Mandarin and Japanese combined, one can almost uniquely reconstruct MC finals, except for the distinction between *-m and *-n. Here is a verbal description of the process:

1. If Japanese has -ku/ki, the MC final consonant is *-k
2. If Japanese has -tsu/-chi, the MC final consonant is *-t 
3. If Mandarin has -ng, the MC final consonant is *-ng
4. If Japanese has a long vowel and Mandarin does not have -ng, the MC final consonant is *-p
5. If Mandarin and Japanese have -n, the MC final consonant is either *-m or *-n
6. Otherwise, there is no MC final consonant (0)

One last point to mention is that Vietnamese also has many Chinese loanwords, but they are a bit harder to find since Chinese characters (known in Vietnam as Chu Nom) have not been widely used in Vietnamese for close to a century. One can find Chinese loanwords by using an online Chu Nom lookup tool or Wiktionary -- Chinese characters were often pronounced with borrowed readings from Chinese, so entering a Chinese character into this tool will return a Chinese loanword cognate to the readings of the Character in other languages. Using this tool, we see that Vietnamese has the following reflexes of the MC final consonants:
Vietnamese: 0 -m -n -ng -p -c -t (tứ tam nhân thượng thập lục nhất)
Thus Vietnamese may also be used to uniquely determine MC final consonants, if one knows that a Vietnamese word is borrowed from Chinese.