ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese

9 INITIAL AND MEDIAL JAND THE MIDDLE CHINESE DIVISIONS (~)

9 INITIAL AND MEDIAL J AND THE MIDDLE CHINESE DIVISIONS (~) 9.1 The Me divisions and medial j The Song Dynasty rime tables, which interpret the QiI~yun, divide syllables within a traditional rime category into four "divisions" or "grades" (teng ~). Karlgren's MC div. III is characterized by a medial jod glide (-i- =Li Fang Kuei's -)-), div. I and IV are jod-Iess (IV has a vocalic medial j in Karlgren's system), and II contrasts with I1IV in having a vowel of a more centered timbre which resulted from loss of OC medial *-r-. Thus the QYS divisions within a traditional MC set are: kill] (no Me medial) LH kOI] i i ~~ wei 3/3 mji 3 mi earnest, generous' ~~ zhun HY! (tsjuen, div. III) [tsun - tsuin] 'sincere, diligent' Inside nei r*J (n;}p I) [n;}p] 'inside' ~~ ru A (ftzj;}P III) [flip] *n;}p 'to enter' 9.1.3 "Pure" div. IV In "pure" div. IV words (i.e., not ch6ng-niudiv. 4/4) with back vowels, the medial-i- must have been primary, i.e., part of the root, and not a secondary development from front vowels as in *kel) > Me kiel]. However, Kam-Tai languages have occasionally no medial palatal where Chinese cognates have medial div. IV *i: To fish dHlO jfr"J [teuC] *tiaukh 'to angle, fish with hook and line' Tai: S. tokD1 'to angle, fish with hook and line' Fade diao [teu] *tiO 'to fade' Tai S. tok 'become faded' (color) 9.1.4 Sources ofMe div. lJ MC div. II vocalism (a, 1], ii, a, 9in Karigren's system) is set up for LHan as a, e, :) (contrasting with div. I G, e, 0). The OC source was medial *-r- and possibly also other configurations (§7.2). However, not all div. II syllables necessarily go back to OC medial *-r-; the cause could perhaps also have been archaism (§7.2.2) or prefixes (§7.4). In the OC rime categories *-ak, *-ek, *-ok, and *-auk, the expected precursors of Me div. III have partially shifted to the later Me div. II after acute initials, and possibly also after 95 9.2 'J' and MC DIVISIONS *7- and *w-. For example, the nasal counterpart to *-ak, the rime *-al), has the same LHan vowel a in both div. I and III syllables (LHan kaI) and kiaI)); this is indicated by the PMin forms which presuppose a back a, not Karlgrcn's MC a, e.g., PMin kiii « kjal)) for the conventional MC kjalJ. In the rime *-ak, the vowel has been raised, resulting in MC rimes -jiik III, -fJk II. Min forms again have the expected back vowel, i.e., LHan -(i)ak. Since the Min dialects probably separated from the rest of CH during the Han period, we can set up for LHan the anticipated back vowel forms; it was mainstream and I or northern-central Chinese that innovated this front shift. Table 9-1 illustrates the situation. Parentheses indicate unique or exceptional forms. The survival of forms with back ak is apparently due to dialect interference , or to incomplete shifting. (Simpler LHan forms instead of Me.) 9-1 OCM *-al) *-al) Diy. I Div. III kOl) lifilJ *-al) Diy. II *-ak Diy. I kak ::& II --~-- ------~t---------~---------I ~k II tsak III PMin *ziak ziak 1$ III ?ok i/J;\ ?ak il5li II wak II t.ak ~ II t~ak mII tsak E III After the initials! and ts, the shift was complete; after ts and t~one or a few words did not participate in this change. Thus ze3 (guk II) LHan MC t§ia C (not t.sjwo0;. Thus OCM *ta7:ff becomes MC t~jaB, not tsjwoB; and 'crow' OCM *7a has a doublet MC *7a ~ beside the expected ?jwo )~. 9.2 Initial j- in OC MC ji- corresponds occasionally to TB and foreign initial *j- and therefore probably to OC *j-, but it is difficult to distinguish a putative OC initial *1- > MC ji- from OC *j- > MC ji-. As to ST medial ,;oj, it seems almost always to correspond to MC div. III, but there are exceptions. Therefore, it is possible that in PCH the ST medial *j was redistributed or lost. An OCM *j- is likely in certain environments. In a few phonetic series and wfs MC ji- and tsj- co-occur. There, MC seems to derive from OCM *j-, not...