Unexpected readings of phonetic components

[Guoke]

半：

伴拌绊秚... ban

判畔叛跘... pan

the odd one out: 胖 pang

[chrix]

actually 胖is a poyinzi and can be read pán as well.

[jbradfor]

察 (cha2) vs 際 (ji4).

[imron]

chrix I've noticed here and in other threads, you use 破音字 to refer to what I would normally call a 多音字. Is there some difference between these terms, or is it perhaps just a mainland Chinese/taiwan Chinese difference?

[chrix]

Yes, and no.

In one sense, it is synonymous to 多音字 and 岐音字.

In another, it can refer to a subset of 多音字, where the pronunciation difference coincides with a meaning difference (thereby excluding those 多音字 that only have an alternative reading pronunciation without any difference in meaning). Also known as 歧音異義字.

(Source: MOE dictionary).

[renzhe]

Actually, I was wondering the same thing.

Thanks for the explanation!

Anyway, my contribution: 侈. I always want to pronounce it as duo1.

Edited February 16, 2010 at 04:08 PM by renzhe

[jbradfor]

Interesting. I didn't even know enough to get confused....

Another one: 揮 (hui1).

I was expecting it to be similar to 軍 (jun1) and 運 (yun4). But I forgot about 輝 (as in 光輝), and there are other less common hui characters such as 暉, 煇, and 翬. But besides those, almost all the others are hun, jun, or yun.

[chrix]

Thanks, keep them coming

So I guess one thing would be to collect common characters whose phonetic component deviates from the pronunciation of other characters with the same one, such as 驗 or 腎.

I can see all sorts of pattern emerge already

[imron]

秤 - chèng rather than píng.

Anyway, my contribution: 侈. I always want to pronounce it as duo1.

And then there's 移 which has different pronunciation again from both

[chrix]

多 has the following:

duo1: 多, 哆

yi: 移 (2), 黟 (1)

chi: 侈 (3), 眵 (1)

die/dia: 爹 (die1), 嗲 (dia3)

die/dia is most likely related somehow to duo....

I have another one, a word where both characters are "odd", and the word means "stingy" to boot :

吝嗇 lìnsè

[renzhe]

How about 貪/贪?

[chrix]

今 is indeed a very messy phonetic component (and I suspect there's some huiyi stuff going on there as well)

We have the standard JIN/QIN stuff (and 矜 can be read jin1/qin2/guan1), but then we have:

qian2: 黔, 鈐

yin2: 吟

tan1: 貪

cen2: 岑, 涔

han2/han4: 含, 晗, 頷 etc.

nian: 念,捻 etc, but note two exceptions here: ren3 稔 and shen3 諗

[Don_Horhe]

隹, pronounced zhuī, usually gives a wei, -ui pronunciation, as in 谁 shéi/shuí, 唯,惟,维 all pronounced wéi, 匯(汇) huì, 推 tuī, etc.

But then we have:

隻(只) - zhī

進(进) - jìn

難(难) - nán, nàn; although I think the left part (jiān) is actually the phonetic here

集 - jí

售 - shòu

焦 - jiāo

霍 - huò

Edit

OK, 隻 and 集 are not 形声字, so they don't count. I'm not too sure about 焦, I think it's 会意.

Edited February 19, 2010 at 09:21 AM by Don_Horhe

[Hofmann]

The initial of 爍 and its homophones.

[renzhe]

What about 祷? I'd expect shou or chou, not dao.

And here's another one: 叵 = pǒ

Only appears in idioms nowadays, but still odd. It's quite likely that it's not a phonetic-semantic character, though, but an ideogram of some sort.

Edited February 21, 2010 at 03:09 AM by renzhe

[jbradfor]

涛 (濤) is tao1, which to me is pretty close to dao3. 擣 and 壔 are also dao3, and 㹗 and 梼 are tao2, but those are not very common.

[trien27]

What about 祷? I'd expect shou or chou, not dao.

The phonetic of 祷, dao isn't 寿, shou, but rather 涛, tao.

叵 = pǒ

"叵" is the reverse of "可" in seal script.* 可 is pronounced "Ho" in Cantonese. It is from this pronunciation plus other Middle Chinese dialectal pronunciations that you get "pǒ" as the pronunciation for "叵"

*Source: I have a book from the series called 中文可以更好 published in Taiwan.

Edited February 21, 2010 at 04:19 AM by trien27

[chrix]

The phonetic of 祷, dao isn't 寿, shou, but rather 涛, tao.

I disagree, how can you assign 涛 as phonetic component of 祷? The part they share is 寿 after all.

But renzhe, a number of phonetic components have an alternation like that between zh/ch and d/t. Take 召 for instance, you have a character like 迢 tiáo, or with variation in the vowel, 周 and 調. I'm still looking for more examples like that, but there's at least some kind of phonological connection between them (same place of articulation), though admittedly this alternation is not very common...

EDIT: I don't find it that rare anymore, there's also 兆 zhào - 跳 tiào - 逃 táo, 勺 sháo - 釣 diào, 卓 zhuó - 掉 diào, 肘 zhǒu - 討 tǎo etc. (now that I think about it, even 首 - 道 might be an example)

Edited February 21, 2010 at 11:45 AM by chrix

[renzhe]

Hrm, I forgot about 涛. That would have made it less odd, at least. I have to stop posting in the wee hours of the night.

It's still a jump from shou (the phonetic in both) to tao/dao.

[chrix]

well, it's two alternations, one in the initial and another in the vowel, so that makes it less intuitive, but it's still not random (the place of articulation is the same, after all, and the vowels are also quite similar). I'm still developing my thoughts on this, but I'd would rate this as a 3-4 on a 10-point-scale...