Yup, another cryptic forum topic title from me, and more benzi 本字 madness!
I have been thinking about the suffixes "-tiáo" (something in progress) and "-tiō" (something that has already happened, or can happen). E.g. "cho tiáo" (做 tiáo) and "cho-tiō" (做 tiō). One means "doing in progress", and the other means "done" or "can be done".
What are the 本字 for these two suffixes?
The equivalents in Mandarin are -著 and -了, respectively. One would be tempted, therefore to say that "-tiáo" is 著. However, that does not seem to square well, for 2 reasons:
1. 'tiō' also means 'correct', which is 著. And there's also 'tiă-tiō' 定著.
2. In Minnan, most literary-colloquial (文白讀) pairs with the literary ending -iong will have the corresponding colloquial ending -iao/-iu, e.g. 張 chiong/tiao, 量 liong/niao.
On the basis of (2), could "-tiáo" be simply the colloquial reading for 中? As in 管業中 (a sign commonly seen hung outside the front doors of both Chinese and Japanese restaurants during business hours) means "business in progress" or "yes, we are open". Etylomogically, it appears to make sense.
