| Change log entry 50651 | |
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| Processed by: | richwarm (2013-09-26 23:15:50 UTC) |
| Comment: |
<< review queue entry 49210 >> OK, regarding the 马子 and its pronunciation issue, just one last time. Actually, apart from Niubi! and Wp@Mandarin_Chinese_profanity (which I'm sure are not as reliable as your mysterious editor), the word is also in MOE: 馬子 mǎ zi ③ 戲稱女孩子或女朋友為「馬子」。 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Editor: Our "mysterious" editor? Actually, it's *you* who are mysterious, as you have chosen to submit anonymously and not register a username or disclose your email address. If you look at the Change Log under 馬子, you will see who the editor is, and you will also find more than 10,000 Change Log entries or submissions under his name, representing a body of work that is both substantial and open to public scrutiny, and there is an envelope icon next to his name for emailing him. Not very mysterious at all. Regarding the MoE entry, we are aware of that and took it into account about a year ago when someone first submitted ma3zi5. MoE is a source we consult as a matter of course, but it is just one source. In regard to the neutral tone in MoE more generally, here is what a professor[*] at National Taiwan University wrote a few months ago: <quote> 黄瓜 is certainly a full tone in Taiwan Mandarin, but then there are very few neutral tones at all in Taiwan Mandarin, beyond function words like 的 de, 著 zhe and 們 men, and even 們 men isn't always neutral! [... and in response to the fact that MoE indicates neutral tone for some words including 算計, 言語, 奶奶 etc.] The dictionaries may say what they will, but in practice, NONE of these [the nine that were offered as examples] have a neutral tone in Taiwan Mandarin. Some, like 算計 and 大夫, are not even common expressions at all, one of the more important motivating forces behind a neutral tone reading. Rather than having a neutral tone reading, names of family relations often have a third tone + second tone pattern: 奶奶 nai3nai2 (though the Southern Min a1ma4 is much more common over here than 奶奶), 哥哥 ge3ge2, 爸爸 ba3ba2. Dictionaries are generally notoriously unreliable when it comes to Taiwan Mandarin - partly because its idiosyncrasies are not well described and it is not widely recognized as an official, valid variety of Mandarin, though that is changing. The dictionaries are just having a hard time catching up. Another problem is lack of native speaker awareness of what they really say. Many think they actually do what they were taught in school, e.g. many are shocked when they learn that a third tone almost never rises in Taiwan Mandarin, even when utterance-final. <unquote> [*] Karen Chung, associate professor at National Taiwan University http://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~karchung/Karen/Karen_Chung_cv.htm Note that we have already suggested that 馬子 "might well be pronounced variously", and we haven't ruled out changing it to zi5, but as I said a few days ago, "we'll leave it as it is for now". |
| Diff: |
# - 馬子 马子 [ma3 zi3] /(slang) girl/chick/babe/ # - 馬子 马子 [ma3 zi5] /bandit/brigand/gambling chip/see 馬桶|马桶/ # + 馬子 马子 [ma3 zi5] /bandit/brigand/gambling chip/see 馬桶|马桶/(slang) girl/chick/babe/ # Editor ~ = 馬子 马子 [ma3 zi3] /(slang) girl/chick/babe/ |