A grammar question or two...

[Ah-bin]

I was interested in another thread to read that sui-jiân (or sui-liân) 雖然 was used in Penang. I wonder. is the meaning exactly the same as in Mandarin? In Mandarin you can use it like "although" or "even though" in English at the beginning of a sentence e.g. 雖然他沒有錢,他還是....even though he is poor he's still....

I heard Bhante Dhammavuddho use it in a slightly different way, meaning "nevertheless" or "even though it is like that" (equivalent to Mandarin 雖然如此). This is the meaning it has in Vietnamese too, and in Classical Chinese 雖 meaning "although" and 然 meaning "in this or that manner". Does Penang Hokkien preserve the original meaning or does it correspond to Mandarin?

Another question that's been bugging me for the past few days is whether you can use the Á-bōe … koh 猶未...搁 "not yet" construction with verbs like ē-hiáu 會曉 and ē-kì 會記

For instance "He doesn't know how to speak Hokkien yet"

and "He still doesn't remember"

I guessed:
I á-bōe ē-hiáu kóng Hok-kiàn-ōa koh

I bē-kì koh.

But I'm really not sure. Any help would (as always) be much appreciated.

[xng]

For instance "He doesn't know how to speak Hokkien yet"

and "He still doesn't remember"

I guessed:
I á-bōe ē-hiáu kóng Hok-kiàn-ōa koh

I bē-kì koh.

The proper grammar is

I kouh be hiau kong hok kien ue
伊故毋會曉講福建話

I kouh be ki
伊故毋會記

[Ah-bin]

Thanks, I wonder if Penang Hokkien is different from this? I know they sometimes put the koh on the end, that is why I'm wondering.

By the way it is definitely koh with a jíp-siaⁿ on the end, which basically means it has a shorter sound than ko 故 would allow. Compare 故事 and koh是 for the difference, if they were exactly the same then the only difference would be the final -u and -i. The tone patterns would be identical. I know that jíp-siaⁿ are sometimes elided, but I don't know of any examples of them being added to morphemes.

[Andrew]

I would say for those two

i a-boe e-hiau kong Hok-kien ua / i be hiau koh / i koh be hiau ...

and

i koh be ki / i be ki koh

[Ah-bin]

Aha! Just as I suspected! Thanks Andrew

[xng]

Thanks, I wonder if Penang Hokkien is different from this? I know they sometimes put the koh on the end, that is why I'm wondering.

By the way it is definitely koh with a jíp-siaⁿ on the end, which basically means it has a shorter sound than ko 故 would allow. Compare 故事 and koh是 for the difference, if they were exactly the same then the only difference would be the final -u and -i. The tone patterns would be identical. I know that jíp-siaⁿ are sometimes elided, but I don't know of any examples of them being added to morphemes.

I can't say about Penang Hokkien, what I was giving as examples is 'standard' hokkien and KL/Singaporean hokkien. Frankly, i have never heard of Koh being put at the end in all taiwanese shows I have watched and even in Southern Malaysia/Singapore.

故 has several meanings and several sounds, 故 in this case has a jíp-siaⁿ . I try to use original characters rather than 'borrowed' characters.

Here's the proof.

http://solution.cs.ucla.edu/~jinbo/dzl/lookup.php

go5 ⦋例⦌ 故事〔方〕超意故 ⦋同音字⦌ 凅告固堌崮棝痼祻稒誥過錮雇顧鯝
gou7 閩南口語謂「仍舊、再、竟然」。 ⦋例⦌ 〔方〕故較〈更〉｜故再〈又〉｜故不〈還不是〉 ⦋備註⦌史記‧卷四‧周本紀：「褒姒不好笑，幽王欲其笑萬方，故不笑。」

[Ah-bin]

I don't know whether you can quote that website as proof all the time. 廣韻 only has one way of saying 故 and that is in the departing tone, so I am very doubtful about whether 故 is correct. Even though the quote from Su-ki 史記 has the meaning, the character has never been recorded with this sound (I've just checked my other dictionaries and found no evidence either).

[xng]

I don't know whether you can quote that website as proof all the time. 廣韻 only has one way of saying 故 and that is in the departing tone, so I am very doubtful about whether 故 is correct. Even though the quote from Su-ki 史記 has the meaning, the character has never been recorded with this sound (I've just checked my other dictionaries and found no evidence either).

廣韻 is based on Middle chinese sound while Min is a much older language based on both Old chinese and middle chinese.

The fact that Min has both literary and colloquail sounds for most characters while cantonese has less such differences show that Min can have more than one sound than 廣韻. Eg. Cantonese has T'ing and T'eng for 聽 but mandarin has only one sound ie. T'ing.

Anyway, we agree to disagree, but in my opinion, ucla website has more accuracies than other books I've seen.

[Ah-bin]

廣韻 is based on Middle chinese sound while Min is a much older language based on both Old chinese and middle chinese.

Point taken..I'll go and have a look at what Karlgren, Baxter and Pulleyblank say about Early Middle Chinese and get back to you on it.

[xng]

Point taken..I'll go and have a look at what Karlgren, Baxter and Pulleyblank say about Early Middle Chinese and get back to you on it.

It's good to have a healthy discussion here. But what I don't understand is why didn't you argue about this in my Benzi thread ?


What I suspect is that Kouh is the original (or close to) Old chinese sound whereas 'Ko Su' (Story) is the literary middle chinese sound.