Another Way Out

[amhoanna]

The tone of lán, gún, goán, in and lín are also either ST7 (as RT2 & RT1?) or mostly ST2, with or without lâng. This is true also of all pronouns in front of ê.

So they act like regular nouns (taking ST).

Maybe Hoklo just doesn't like its pronouns to stick out in a sentence. If I remember right, ST2 is mid-to-low-falling in Bagansiapiapi, while RT2 is high-rising: more salient.

You can have a look at the book "Kam-Tai Language and Culture" here:
http://wenku.baidu.com/view/c8800e7e5ac ... 0ccd5.html

Oà! Si̍tcāi ū kàu cán!!! I really like how she (she, right?) talks about Damciu, Ping and Yuet in the context of each other. Goá "bô oā" liaú (speechless ).

I would LOVE to get more information on all the languages spoken south of the West River. At the moment I have some homophone lists and a few descriptions, but I'm always on the look out for detailed descriptions and vocabularies.

I guess some more fieldwork is in order. And fast. The Cantonese is probably levelling fast, and some of the small-time languages might not be around much longer, esp. outside the sociolinguistic magic bubble that is Kúiⁿtang 廣東. (Where do they get that pride --- was it a Tai-Kadai thing? I mean, the Siamese have got it too. Maybe 李錦芳's paper sheds light on that.)

There's a very detailed paper (book) on Be. Have U seen it? I used to have it but I had to donate it to the U of California.

[SimL]

In my variant we don't say lílâng/lúlâng or goálâng, but línlâng, gúnlâng, lánlâng and inlâng

I'm very pleased to read this, because this is similar to how my mother speaks, when she's speaking the variant of her childhood, rather than Penang Hokkien. I think she says "línnâng", "gúnnâng", and "innâng", actually, but the principle is the same. I've been intrigued by this, ever since I was young, because it seems to be a "double plural" - as it were - as the "lín", "gún" and "in" are already (in yet other variants) already indications of plurality.

She too says the first syllable of each as (respectively) tone2, tone2, tone1, i.e. without a sandhi-tone.

[niuc]

Maybe Hoklo just doesn't like its pronouns to stick out in a sentence. If I remember right, ST2 is mid-to-low-falling in Bagansiapiapi, while RT2 is high-rising: more salient.

Hmmm! Amhoanna, I believe you are right!

She too says the first syllable of each as (respectively) tone2, tone2, tone1, i.e. without a sandhi-tone.

Thanks, Sim! Glad to know that your mother speaks it that way too!