Jump to content
Chinese-Forums
  • Sign Up

Does the pronunciation of the right radical always remain the same?


Cyath

Recommended Posts

One thing I've noticed in my study of Chinese is that it tends to be that words are pronounced the same regardless of the 左边。 (left side) Like

锤捶垂 all of these are all "chui"

 

And yet, sometimes they are not pronounced the same way after all! Examples of this escape me at the moment though.

 

Is there any guide or system to this? 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Phonetic (sound) components most often come on the right, but it's far from consistent. Sometimes the phonetic component is placed elsewhere; sometimes it is technically phonetic but doesn't seem so due to historical sound changes in the language; and sometimes there's no phonetic component at all.

Examples: 整 (phonetic component 正 on the bottom)

脸 (phonetic component is 佥, which doesn't sound alike in modern Mandarin)

好 (no phonetic; 女 and 子 are both semantic).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And yet, sometimes they are not pronounced the same way after all! Examples of this escape me at the moment though.
睡.

猜 and 倩 are also good ones.

 

Unfortunately, the pronunciation of phonetic elements is not always the same. That would make it too easy. It's often still a useful hint though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It would be impossible for all of them to be pronounced the same. Language is always changing, plus, you only know how they are pronounced in 普通话, 普通话 is not everything. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

down vote for #5? WTF!?

Is it possible someone hit the wrong one by accident? I can't see some colours and always have trouble working out which one is which.

 

Either way, I agree with @Angelina in that the same character system (or thereabouts) is applied as widely as Cantonese and Japanese. Linguistically it'd be a stretch for an incredibly old writing system to apply to all associated forms of modern speech, and the simplification process never reliably responded to 普通话 phonemes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mainland China had "the father of pinyin", Taiwan had "pinyin is a Russian conspiracy", a lot of damage done to scholarship and literacy skills. This, unfortunately, is not restricted to Mainland China. 

 

 

BTW 音韵学 is really difficult

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you always have to bring unrelated politics into every thread? FWIW 周有光 is hardly a supporter of the mainland establishment himself, the only reason he's not labeled a dissident is due to being a national treasure. Playing the relativism card really isn't necessary here...

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Woah, fascinating. Thanks OneEye!

 

As an extension, would it be accurate to say that current scholarship on character components is largely flawed due to this? Is the opinion you just expressed well known among academics that study characters?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Putting the blame on one particular paper for subsequent flawed scholarship is not much different from the reason why such a thing happened in the first place, namely, that there is one problem that should be addressed.

Is the opinion you just expressed well known among academics that study characters?

Academics that study characters are usually wary of pointing at one problematic paper that apparently started an "epidemic".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Notice that I didn't say the paper started the epidemic. That paper is part of the epidemic, not the cause of it.  :wink:

 

As an extension, would it be accurate to say that current scholarship on character components is largely flawed due to this? Is the opinion you just expressed well known among academics that study characters?

 

It depends on who you're reading. Paleographers tend to get it right more often because they understand this stuff on a deeper, more historical level. But there's plenty of bad scholarship in paleography, too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

With 猜, we're looking at one of those ugly sound series. 青 made a good sound component for 猜 once upon a time.
Oh, I don't doubt that. That was my hunch anyway. It's just that it can really trip one up after a series of 青 请 精 静 情 to suddenly run into 猜. Although personally I don't have any trouble getting 猜 right, it's 倩 that really got me when I first came across it. Thanks for the explanation for that one, I'd always figured that in the past qian and qing had a similar pronunciation, but I learned something new today.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does the 青 in 倩  imply meaning? Youth? I wonder how 倩 is pronounced in other Sinitic languages. 

 

 

This reminds me of 戋 钱 浅 贱 残 where 戋 is semantic and the rule is called 右文说. Less common then the usual 青 请 情 晴 清 where the right side is phonetic. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the explanation for that one, I'd always figured that in the past qian and qing had a similar pronunciation, but I learned something new today.

 
Well, I could be wrong. But 千 actually makes a really good sound component for 倩. That is, it fits more neatly than 青 does (and that's true both historically and in other modern Sinitic languages). That doesn't mean 青 couldn't be the sound component, though, which is why I'm reserving the right to be wrong until I look into it more. One problem is that I haven't found an example of the character containing 千, only with 亻. However, the earliest example of 倩 I can find is Warring States, which is when the 人/千 (and 身) switch thing was really common, so it's not a deal breaker by any means.
 
Anyway, I'm going to cheat a bit and post a screenshot of a bit of our database. This or a version of it will make it into the "expert edition" entry for 人 in our dictionary:
 
post-4442-0-84533600-1478138841_thumb.png
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, I could be wrong. But 千 actually makes a really good sound component for 倩. That is, it fits more neatly than 青 does (and that's true both historically and in other modern Sinitic languages).
I wish they'd done that.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and select your username and password later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Click here to reply. Select text to quote.

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...