How to "change" in Penang Hokkien

[Ah-bin]

To express the idea of change in Penang Hokkien the particle liáu 了 is very useful. I have been paying attention to it recently, but perhaps I am missing some of the subtleties of its use. It can be used for several English expressions, such as “get + adj. + er” and “to change to”

I tōa-hàn-liáu “He got older”

Hóe âng-liáu “The light turned red”

Thiⁿ-sî joáh-liáu “The weather became warmer”

I-lâng chhut-miâ-liáu “They became famous”

Some of these seem related to the other basic meaning of liáu – the one that indicates a “new situation”

Bô lâng-liáu “(now) there’s nobody here”

In some cases liáu just doesn’t seem to fit, especially when you want to say that one noun changed into another noun.

“The caterpillar changed into a butterfly”
“Penang became a big city”
“He became a teacher”

How do you say this sort of thing? Taiwanese had a word "siâⁿ" 成 and seemed to use liáu an awful lot less than the other types of Hokkien in Southeast Asia. I would be very interested to hear your comments.
Ah-bin

[Loke]

Perhaps this is different sides of the same coin but my experience with the word "liáu" is more akin to the concept of "already". In the example you gave "He became a teacher" could perhaps be expressed as "I cho sin-seah liau" (as distinct from "I si sin-seah liau" or "He is now/already a teacher"). It's been several decades since I practiced my Penang Hokkien so this could all be wrong of course...

Loke

[Andrew]

You can say "pièn" 變, e.g. "i e tau-mO pien pEh khi", his hair turned white; "i pien co i-seng", he switched jobs to become a doctor, etc.

[SimL]

You can say "pièn" 變, e.g. "i e tau-mO pien pEh khi", his hair turned white; "i pien co i-seng", he switched jobs to become a doctor, etc.

Hi Andrew,

Yes, I agree that "piEn" would be a good way to formulate this concept.

I think one can also say "piN" for "piEn" (same sandhied tone: 1)? It sort of sounds ok to me, but I'm rather unsure. http://www.internationalscientific.org confirms that this is another pronunciation of the character.

If expressing some sort of surprise, or stressing the unusual/dramatic nature of the change, one can use the modal particle "sua1" (sandhied tone): "i e tau-mO sua pien pEh khi". Does anyone know the hanzi for this "sua"?

Regards,
SimL

[SimL]

Hi Ah-bin,

I have a slightly different take on the "liau" issue. In most of the examples you give, I would have used the English "present perfect" tense to render the "liau"-sentences.

This is because the English present perfect (subtly!) indicates "present relevance". This present relevance often goes hand-in-hand with "change of state" (if something doesn't change, there's no reason for it to be relevant now, or something fuzzy like that...).

So:

I tōa-hàn-liáu - “He HAS GROWN bigger” (present relevance: I'm surprised, because I hadn't seen him for ages; etc)

Hóe âng-liáu - “The light HAS TURNED red” (present relevance: so, we can't cross the street anymore; etc)

Thiⁿ-sî joáh-liáu - “The weather HAS BECOME warmer” (present relevance: so we can start going to the beach again; so we can't stand outside in the sun for a long time any more; etc)

I-lâng chhut-miâ-liáu - “They HAVE BECOME famous” (present relevance: so they no longer bother to talk to us; etc)

Bô lâng-liáu - “(now) there’s nobody here [i.e. they HAVE all LEFT]” (present relevance: so the party has died down; so we can't ask anyone to help us anymore; etc)

If it is "pure" past tense (i.e. reporting a fact in the past, less emphasis on present relevance), then I wouldn't use the "liau". [Of course, there is ALWAYS implicitly present relevance (otherwise one wouldn't bother to SAY something!), but it's a matter of how much the present relevance is being focussed upon / emphasized.]

“He GOT (much) bigger 2 years ago” - nO ni ceng i (sua) tua han khi

“The light TURNED red on Wednesday (and has stayed that way since)” - hue pai-saN piEn ang (kau ka tong-kim bo piEn to-tuiN)

“The weather BECAME warmer in 1990” - 1990 thiN (piN) kha juah khi.

Mind you, this "logic" doesn't always hold water:

“They BECAME famous a long time ago” - i-lang cin-nia ce ni ceng chut-miaN LIAU

Nevertheless, I think my rough formulation does hold water.

In British English, one can't use the perfect tense as soon as one mentions a specific time or time-period in the past: *"I have seen him (3 times) yesterday" is slightly ungrammatical, it should be "I have seen him (3 times) BEFORE" or "I SAW him (3 times) yesterday". This too is connected to the fact of the present relevance being less stressed once a time or time-period is explicitly mentioned (i.e. it shifts the relevance of the event to the fact of its *occurrence* in the past).

Still, the whole area is extremely complicated and subtle. I'm told (and have observed on occasions) that American English doesn't have this rule to nearly the same extent as British English.

So, to summarize my idea: (British) English perfect tense = focus on present relevance = use "liau", (British) English past tense = less focus on present relevance = don't need to use "liau", just the verb itself, and the mention of the time period will place the event in the past.

Hope this helps. Please feel free to disagree if you perceive it otherwise.

Regards,
Sim.

[Ah-bin]

very nice explanations....

Is that "khi" on the end a 起 or a 去? I'm guessing the first.

[SimL]

No, actually, it's the second.

Perhaps a good way to think about it is:

"(sua) juah KHI" = "it WENT and got hotter"
"(sua) tua-han KHI" = "he WENT and got bigger"

Just a thought!

Cheers,
Sim.

[Ah-bin]

Ah, now I have seen that "sua" twice. I'm guessing it is POJ "soah" which Hokkien dictionaries write as 煞. There are many explanations in Douglas, but I haven't consciously heard anyone use it yet. I'll listen out for it in the next few weeks.

regards,

Ah-Bin

[SimL]

Great, thanks for the hanzi.

I use it quite a lot, when I wish to lend "drama" or "intensity" to a situation. (Or perhaps only to stess a causal connection...? See examples below - though causal connections are often connected to "more intensity").

For example, if I said "wa ka i kong e si, i be-hiau in wa" it would mean "when I told him, he didn't know the answer". That's a reasonably neutral statement, he just happened not to know the answer. But if I say "wa ka i kong e si, i sua(h) be-hiau in wa" it suggests that what I told him was such surprising or shocking information that he was suddenly at a loss for an answer - that it threw him completely. Or "wa ca-huiN khi chua i e si, phang-kiN wa e so-si" would mean "I lost my keys yesterday, (sometime) when I went to fetch him", but "wa ca-huiN khi chua i e si, sua(h) phang-kiN wa e so-si (khi/去)" would imply that one major (side) consequence of my going to fetch him (for example, because it was a very complicated or stressful process), was that I lost my keys (because my attention was so focussed on other things); i.e. not just two things which happened to occur in the same time frame (fetching him and losing my keys), but that the first (fetching him) was "dramatic" or "intense" and as a consequence, I lost my keys.

Very subtle (which is what I like about language).

This is just my subjective feeling. I look forward to seeing what Douglas says about this when I get home. Or hearing what other Forum members think.

Regards,
SimL

[Andrew]

I think one can also say "piN" for "piEn" (same sandhied tone: 1)? It sort of sounds ok to me, but I'm rather unsure. http://www.internationalscientific.org confirms that this is another pronunciation of the character.

I am sure the word has this pronunciation, but I'm not sure whether it can be used in PgHk in this sense.

If expressing some sort of surprise, or stressing the unusual/dramatic nature of the change, one can use the modal particle "sua1" (sandhied tone): "i e tau-mO sua pien pEh khi". Does anyone know the hanzi for this "sua"?

I recognise the usage, but I think it might be 速仔 so-a elided - my uncle says "i so bo khi" rather than "i soa bo khi"