Chinese characters – Sino-Tibetan-Austronesian

Some generalizations for a start. Those Sino-Tibetan (ST) words for ‘10’ that end in a labial consonant have the widest distribution and almost certainly reflect the main PST etymon for ‘ten’. They come in two flavors: with vowels *i and *ə. The i-set is limited to Tibeto-Burman (TB). Its members either end in a stop: -ip, -ep, -iap: WB kyip, Limbu gip, Mikir kep, Geman Deng kiɑp/kyep, etc. or—if the stop has been lost— in the vowel preceding it: for instance in some rGyalrongic languages: Japhug sqi, Ergong (Daofu); (Huang and Dai 1992) zʁa ‘ten’, sqha (‘ten’ in ‘20’, ‘30’ etc., from earlier zʁe, sqhe, or zʁia, sqhia). The STEDT website reconstructs *gip ‘ten’, which is fine except that Japhug sqi and Ergong zʁa indicate a uvular initial. Under Matisoff, the STEDT ignores the ST distinction between velars and uvulars. WB kyip, on the other hand, seems to argue against a uvular, since PST uvulars normally go to zero/ʔ (depending on the transcription being used) in Burmese (Peiros and Starostin 1995). Here we probably see the original uvular anteriorized to a velar by the preceding s- in rGyalrongic, a closely related group according to Sagart et al. (2019). This points to a PTB *sɢip.

The STEDT does not give a reconstruction for the ə-vowel set. TB merges *ə into *a, thus the TB forms in this set usually have a low vowel. They include Proto-Tani *čam ‘tens’ (Sun 1993) as in Adi Bokar ʧam– ’10’ in numbers ‘20’ and above. The situation in rGyalrongic is more complex. As already mentioned, Japhug has sqi for ‘10’. In Jacques’s synchronic analysis (2021:236), ‘10’ as a formative in teens is is /sqa/ . Specifically in 11, 12, 13 and 16 it is immediately followed by a labial consonant before the unit number: 11 sqa-p-tɯɣ, 12 sqa-m-nɯz, 13 sqa-f-sum, 16 sqa-p-rɤɣ. The labial element is not inserted in 14 and 15, as the unit number already begins in a labial: sqa-βde, sqa-mŋu. No labial element is inserted in 17-19: sqa-ɕnɯz, sqa-rcat, sqa-nŋɯt. It is of course the lack of an inserted labial in 17-19 which motivates treating -p-, -m-, -f- as insertions: historically they are vestiges of an earlier *-p coda on ‘10’ (pre-Japhug *sqap) assimilated on the following numeral’s initial. Ergong (Huang and Dai 1992) is parallel to Japhug: along with zʁa and sqha, already mentioned for ‘ten’ and its exact multiples, one has ʁɑ in teens (notice the back vowel). The -m endings in Proto-Tani *čam ’tens’ probably also had their *-p ending assimilated on a following nasal: for an unknown reason the *-am forms displaced the *-ap forms. If we wanted to include Proto-Kuki-Chin *soom ‘ten’ (VanBik 2009) in the ə-vowel set, we would need a change ɢ > w, so that *sɢaap/m > swaam > soom. I am not aware of any evidence for that change (noyt that I would necessarily), so the reason for the vowel change may well lie elsewhere.

rGyalrongic holds clues to a solution to the two-flavor problem. Japhug and Daofu have a front vowel when ‘ten’ occurs at the end of a numeral expression—i.e. in ‘10’ and its multiples—vs. a low or back vowel when ‘10’ is non-final, being followed by a unit numeral—in teens. If PST numeral expressions were stressed on the last morpheme and non-final morphemes were unstressed, non-final ‘ten’ would have a more central vowel than word-final ‘10’ phonetically. This could eventually phonologize so that one would get a phonemic contrast between /sɢip/ and /sɢəp/. Only the latter’s ending would have the opportunity to assimilate on a following numeral’s onset—the former was never followed by a numeral. This will explain why the *p ending in the *i-set either remains or falls, but never assimilates, and why only the *ə-set can end in -m.

Tani has lost the i-vowel variant to an innovated form Proto-Tani *rjɯŋ ‘ten’. In all other contexts the ə-variant *čam ‘tens’ has prevailed, even in exact multiples of ten because the Tani order for these numerals is 10-multiplicator, e.g. Adi-Bokar tʃɑmɲi 10-2 ‘twenty’, tʃɑmum 10-3 ‘thirty’, tʃɑmpi 10-3 ‘forty’, tʃɑmŋo 10-5 ‘fifty’. Here we understand why.

Let us now turn to Chinese. The Baxter-Sagart OC reconstruction is *t.[g]əp > MC dzyip ‘10’. This is self-evidently part of the ə-vowel set. *[g] is shorthand for ‘either *g or *ɢ’. Although after non-pharyngealized onsets OC *-ip and *-əp are indistinguishable—both MC -ip—we are confident that in Old Chinese ‘10’ had OC *-əp because c. 1300-1200 BCE the Oracle Bone inscription graphs for shí 十 ‘10’ and for zhēn 箴/鍼/針 ‘needle’ are identical: a vertical stroke. In some bronze inscriptions one end of the stroke is blunt and the other is sharp: clearly a drawing of a needle. Both the loan to Vietnamese găm ‘bamboo or metal pin’ and the WB cognate word ap ‘needle’ are incompatible with *-ip/im. Baxter and Sagart (2014) reconstructed ‘needle’ 箴鍼針 as *t.[k]əm, where [k] is shorthand for *k and *q. Proto-Tai *qem ‘needle’ (Pittayaporn 2009) is a Chinese loanword whose *q- could reflect OC pharyngealized *kˤ-, but not plain *k-. This disambiguates ‘needle’ to OC *t.qəm. Thus ‘10’ and ‘needle’ were phonetically close: *t.ɢəp vs. *t.qəm. Normally the difference in endings would have stood in the way of equivalence in the script. Either ‘needle’ had a doublet with -p (as in WB ap, WT khab, Japhug taqaβ), or ‘10’ had a doublet *t.ɢəm through assimilation on a numeral beginning in a nasal, as in rGyalrongic.

It is as yet unclear if the TB and Chinese preinitials: *s- vs. *t., are relatable. So for PST I suggest a doublet for ‘10’: expression-final *[t,s]V.ɢip, non-final *[t,s]V.ɢəp. Chinese has generalized the non-final form across the entire paradigm. As we saw, TB maintains the two and the context in which the PST vowel distinction first arose is only displayed by rGyalrongic.

References

Baxter, William H. and Laurent Sagart. 2014. Old Chinese: a new reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press.

Jacques, Guillaume. 2021. A grammar of Japhug (Comprehensive Grammar Library 1). Berlin: Language Science Press. http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/295

Huang Bufan and Dai Qingxia, eds. 1992. Zangmianyuzu yuyan cihui 《藏緬語族語言詞匯》[A Tibeto-Burman Lexicon]. Beijing: Central Institute of Minorities. Accessed via STEDT database <http://stedt.berkeley.edu/search/> on 2024-10-31.

Peiros, I., and S. Starostin. 1995. A comparative vocabulary of five Sino-Tibetan languages. 5 fascicles. Melbourne: Department of Linguistics and applied Linguistics, University of Melbourne.

Pittayaporn, Pittayawat. 2009. The phonology of proto-Tai. Unpublished Cornell U. dissertation.Laurent Sagart, Guillaume Jacques, Yunfan Lai, Robin J. Ryder, Valentin Thouzeau, Simon J. Greenhill, Johann-Mattis List. 2019. Dated language phylogenies shed light on the ancestry of Sino-Tibetan. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences May 2019, 116 (21) 10317-10322.

Sun, Jackson Tianshin. 1993. A historical-comparative study of the Tani (Mirish) branch in Tibeto-Burman. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.

VanBik, Kenneth. 2009. A reconstructed ancestor of the Kuki-Chin languages. STEDT monograph 8. Berkeley, University of California.

Web sites

STEDT database <http://stedt.berkeley.edu/search/> on 2024-10-31.

Numeral systems of the world’s languages. https://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/channumerals/

The traditional (non-simplified) Chinese character 風 *prəm > pjuwng > fēng ‘wind (n.)’ consists of 凡 *[b]rom > bjom > fán as phonetic, plus an insect 虫 inside it, in a position that could suit a signific. Such is the analysis implied by the Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字 c. 100 CE, which says [ 從蟲凡聲 ] “with phonetic 凡, and signific 蟲”. The rationale for linking the wind with insects involves numerology: the number ‘eight’ governs both the eight winds and the insects (since these are said to need eight days to transform from the larval stage).

The true reason for the presence of 虫 is more interesting. The evolution of the graph for ‘wind’ was told by Jì Xùshēng 季旭昇 (2002 [2010], vol. 2 p. 225). According to him, the 虫 element in the modern character appears graphically (at first in its full form 蟲), as part of the character for ‘wind’, in Zhan Guo 戰國 times in palaeographic material from Shuihudi 睡虎地. Graphically it continues a triple pattern on the feathers of 鳳 *[b]r[ə]m-s > bjuwngH > fèng ‘phoenix’, a character used for 風 “wind” as a loangraph (or jiajiezi 假借字) in the oracle bone inscriptions. This 鳳 character itself was a drawing of a bird with ornate feathers, sometimes accompanied by 凡 in a phonetic capacity. [Added Feb. 5, 2021: Ma Kun 马坤 informs me that the explanation of the graphic history of the character goes back to Zeng Xiantong 曾宪通 (1996). Chu Wenzi shi cong (wu ze). Zhongshan Daxue xuebao 3:58-65. ]

Phonologically the character’s pronunciation is recounted in Baxter and Sagart (2014:310-311). They reconstructed the OC form of ‘wind’ as *prəm. In the evolution to Middle Chinese, Old Chinese words ending in *-əm underwent a special development when their initial was a labial: *-əm was rounded to *-um under the effect of the initial; upon which the -m ending dissimilated to *-ŋ. In that way 風 “wind” evolved from OC *prəm to *prum, *pruŋ and finally MC pjuwng. The word “bear” 熊 followed the same evolution, from OC *C.[ɢ]ʷ(r)əm to [ɢ]ʷ(r)um to [ɢ]ʷ(r)uŋ and finally to MC hjuwng.

Now back to our original question, what is an insect 虫/蟲 doing there ? In the Baxter-Sagart system, 蟲 is Old Chinese *C.lruŋ > Middle Chinese drjuwng. After the evolution *prəm > *prum > pruŋ, 凡 (*[b]rom in OC) could no longer be recognized as a phonetic, and there would be a need for phonetic remotivation of the character. Getting a 蟲 to appear in ‘wind’, out of an earlier graphic detail, would provide a phonetic clue to the string -ruŋ in 風 at the *pruŋ stage. Imperfect, because of the lack of any labial before -r-, but still informative. In other words, 蟲 occurs in ‘wind’ as an (imperfect) phonetic element.

In the history of the Chinese script, it is not rare for graphic elements originally playing no phonetic role to be reconditioned as phonetics, a process known as “phonetic remotivation”, sometimes called 音化 “phoneticization” in Chinese. As here, such phonetics tend to display imperfect adequation to the character’s pronunciation, evidently due to the strong graphic constraints on the process: 音化 phonetics are selected, not out of the entire collection of available phonetics, but out a narrower collection of phonetics bearing some graphic resemblance to a part of an earlier character.

In the case of 風, we may turn things around and take the first appearance of 蟲 in feng 風 as a terminus post quem non for the late OC *pruŋ stage: Warring States, then.

References:

Baxter, William H. and Laurent Sagart. 2014. Old Chinese: a new reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press.

Jì Xùshēng 季旭昇. 2010 [2002]. Shuōwén xīn zhèng 說文新證 [New evidence on the Shuōwén]. Fúzhōu 福州: Taipei: Yee Wen. (In Chinese)

Tag: Chinese characters

The i vs. ə alternation in the Sino-Tibetan word for ‘10’

What is an insect doing in the Chinese character for “wind” ?