“Red Cliffs” in Taiwanese Hànbûn

"RED CLIFFS" IN TAIWANESE HANBUN DAVID PRAGER BRANNER University of Maryland Dedicated in friendship toAng Tek-Iam3*ifTW Introduction In Taiwan one often hears that the Taiwanese reading accent is the ideal pronunciation for appreciating classical or other pre-modem literature, which is known in Taiwanese itself as Hanbun it:t.".This paper presents a transcription into Taiwanese, of the "Qhln Chibi fll .[First Red Cliffs Composition] 1W~5fPi\" of Sii Shi ,~*$\(1036-1101), and examines it both as a performance and as an expression of the innate sound of the literary work. The main question around which discussion revolves is: How well after all does the Taiwanese reading tradition suit the £esthetic needs of a late medieval·lyrical work like the "Chibi fu"? Conventions In recent research I· have examined recordings of various premodern works as read aloud or chanted by contemporary Taiwanese scholars. Accents and reading styles do differ. In the present case, Taiwanese character readings are taken from .the Huiyln baojian [LuI-im p6-kam] ~ t"f 4ji (Shen 1954, hereafter "Baojian"),one of a small forest of native Taiwanese dictionaries. In order to make my points~ as clearly as possible, I have made a few typographical innovations that may be unfamiliar, for which I ask the reader's patience. I have adjusted the Baojian's rornanization slightly, to bring it nearer to the practice of the Arnoy RomanizedBible (1960). PinYIn romanization of Mandarin is used for most forms not related to Taiwanese pronunciation. Taiwanese is printed in boldface to distinguish it plainly from Mandarin, and medieval forms are enclosed in curly brackets {}. The vowel written Ef is phonetically [0], while that written 0 varies CHINOPERL Papers No. 24 (2002) @2002 by the Conference on Chine~e Oral and Performing Literature, Inc. CHINOPERL Papers No. 24 among [e] (my preferred pronunciation), [0], [1f], and [m]; some Taipei f: ;It speakers pronounce ·both ET and 0 as [0]. Tones vary more than is generally realized; in the accent I ·prefer they sound as follows: example Taiwanese name standard name basic sandhi value value a ehiiin-pian J:.-t ylnpfng~-t I rei ehiiin-ehiiin J:.J:. ylnshang ft J:. 'i fa ehiiin-khJ J:.-J;: ylnqu~-J;: .j I' ap, at, ak chiiin-jlp .LA. ylnru FtA i ~ a e-pianT-t yangpfng ~-t -1 ra e-khJT-J;: yangqu~-J;: -1 ~ ap, at, ak e-jlpTA yangriJ ~A -I ~ As is the case in spoken Taiwanese, the normal pronunciation of every syllable is ordinarily that of its sandhi tone value. "Basic" tone values are heard only in certain exceptional syntactic environments: (1) the last normally stressed syllable in a sentence; (2) the last syllable of the grammatical subject or the "topic" (when grammar is analyzed according to the "topic-comment" principle); an exception is a pronoun in subject position; (3) the last syllable of a coverb-noun phrase; (4) certain phrase-initial conjunctions; In addition, many particles are unstressed, and the syllable preceding such a particle does not undergo tone sandhi. This principle also applies to . one-syllable pronouns serving as object to a verb (mainly chi Z). I have added several symbols to assist reading, appended after the affected syllable: # o indicates that syllable does not undergo tone change; indicates that syllable is drawn out or followed by a pause; indicates that syllable is pronounced unstressed. Contemporary Taiwan dialects generally have either a Chiang-chiu [Zhangzhou ~f~'N]or a Tsoan-chiu [Quanzhou 7~7J\I] cast to them, though relatively few are actually close to the authentic accents of those two 68 Branner "Red Cliffs" in Taiwanese Han bun southern Fujian ~~~ cities. The dictionary on which the present transcription is based, the Baojian, is itself based on the conservative Zhangzhou dialect reading tradition embodied in the HuJji yaslltong shiwuyln [Lui-tstp ngesiok -thong stp-ng~-im].~ ~$.1~it +.£-t (Chia 1818). It is important to be aware that there area variety of traditional rime-books current in Taiwan, and their readings are by no means consistent. Note that the Baojian, like much of modern Taiwan reading practice, uses -iun for the rime tradtionally pronounced -ion [i5] in conservative Zhangzhou accents, and I have followed its...