Nominal demonstratives in the Southern Min Dialect of Hui’an

This paper first clarifies the terms ‘demonstratives’ and ‘nominal demonstratives’, and how they differ from the Chinese term zhǐshì dàicí 指示代詞. We examine five sets of nominal demonstrative attested in the Southern Min dialect of Hui’an, in terms of their syntactic functions, their semantic features and their pragmatic uses. These demonstratives, which may involve syllable fusion, are marked for number, and also for type and genericity. In terms of pragmatic uses, they have not only an exophoric use, but also anaphoric, recognitional, discourse deictic, and other uses. Cet article clarifie tout d’abord les termes “démonstratif” et “déterminant démon­stratif”, et ce qui les différencie du terme chinois zhǐshì dàicí 指示代詞. Nous examinons du point de vue syntaxique, sémantique et pragmatique cinq séries de déterminants démonstratifs du nom attestés dans le dialecte min du sud de Hui’an, dont certains peuvent provenir d'une contraction syllabique. Ils sont marqués quant au nombre, au type et à la généricité. Du point de vue pragmatique, ils peuvent avoir des emplois exophorique, anaphorique, de reconnaissance, comme un emploi déictique discursif.

The Phonetic Nature of the Entering Tones in Chaozhou Dialect

One of the most important features of the entering tones (rusheng) of the Min dialect of Chaozhou is that yinru has a lower pitch than yangru. This project demonstrates the acoustic properties of 200 Chaozhou rusheng syllables by examining their spectrogram patterns, spectral tilt and HNR. Our findings show that the tonal flip-flop in Chaozhou dialect has resulted from changes in phonation type of the rusheng syllables. The yinru syllables drop their final glottal stop and have changed their phonation into creaky voice, which induced low pitch. Yangru syllables are more complicated. There are two variants of yangru, one having a final glottal stop, the other having a compound phonation called creaky-falsetto