Contractions in Chinese

[smithsgj]

In your example the n sound (the nasal) undergoes contraction doesn't it? I mean you don't really say 'yanr', do you, it's more like 'ye-r'. Maybe the vowel is a little bit nasalized.

[tetsuo500]

I think what casual was saying, was, that even though you may not hear the n in the name, it is not a contraction. It is just a characteristic of the accent. The speaker is still THINKING the n, just not using it. If a Beijinger were to put on another accent, they would say the n sound, whilst they would skip it in their normal Beijing accent. A contraction would be when part of a word is lost, despite the accent being used.

I knew nothing about 'contractions' before this thread, so I'm just assuming here.

[smithsgj]

I would say that if the Beijing speaker is in some sense "thinking" the 'n' then it is indeed a contraction. And also if the vowel has any sort of nasal quality to it at all.

If it's just a case of the 'n' being swopped for an 'r' then it is *not* a contraction. But I'm not happy with that, because my impression of erhua, like Casual's, is that it involves adding something on, not exchanging something.

Something is added on, and as a result something disappears. It happens in that order, in my opinion.

[Luobot]

I first heard it in Wuhan

An old friend of mine from Wuhan never used the “r” sound, but would pronounce [ADSO]什么[/ADSO] as, “sh’ma?”

[tooironic]

About the er hua, I don't think it's a contraction, as not all 儿 words, contrary to popular belief, take out the previous syllable entirely. Take 爱好儿 for example. From the native speakers I've heard pronouncing it, the 'er' here does not completely 'take over' the 'hao', there is in fact a small gap between the two - effectively there isn't much of a contraction at all.