Comments on: A dose of soy sauce http://www.sinoglot.com/bjs/2008/08/a-dose-of-soy-sauce/?&owa_medium=feed&owa_sid= Home of the Beijing Sounds Studios: productions mostly of language through foreign ears Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:08:32 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: syz http://www.sinoglot.com/bjs/2008/08/a-dose-of-soy-sauce/comment-page-1/#comment-2842 syz Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:35:26 +0000 http://www.bjshengr.com/bjs/?p=203#comment-2842 @Randy -- I wasn't thinking zheme/zeme is a free variation thing. I'm pretty sure that this part is NOT true for the Beijingers I know: <blockquote>someone who would say 这么 zème would also say 老师 lǎosī</blockquote> I think they say zème but would never say lǎosī. So my hypothesis is that zème simply IS the pronunciation of 这么, perhaps regionally, but not in the free variation zh/z that you're thinking. Alas I haven't yet gone back to recordings to try to validate this. @Randy — I wasn’t thinking zheme/zeme is a free variation thing. I’m pretty sure that this part is NOT true for the Beijingers I know:

someone who would say 这么 zème would also say 老师 lǎosī

I think they say zème but would never say lǎosī. So my hypothesis is that zème simply IS the pronunciation of 这么, perhaps regionally, but not in the free variation zh/z that you’re thinking.

Alas I haven’t yet gone back to recordings to try to validate this.

]]> By: Randy Alexander http://www.sinoglot.com/bjs/2008/08/a-dose-of-soy-sauce/comment-page-1/#comment-2827 Randy Alexander Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:49:18 +0000 http://www.bjshengr.com/bjs/?p=203#comment-2827 My "unbelievably" indicates that I'm surprised that they would say that in the dictionary. From my perspective, the only people who would say that are people who don't distinguish between the flat tongue / curled tongue consonants (or do so wrongly); so someone who would say 这么 zème would also say 老师 lǎosī, and maybe 厕所 chèshuǒ, depending on their ability to differentiate between flat and curled consonants. I'm well aware that this kind of speaking, whether you call it a speech problem, or just chalk it up to variation, is widespread, but accepting both zhè and zè in <i>standard</i> Mandarin just doesn't seem to jibe with the rest of the system. My “unbelievably” indicates that I’m surprised that they would say that in the dictionary. From my perspective, the only people who would say that are people who don’t distinguish between the flat tongue / curled tongue consonants (or do so wrongly); so someone who would say 这么 zème would also say 老师 lǎosī, and maybe 厕所 chèshuǒ, depending on their ability to differentiate between flat and curled consonants. I’m well aware that this kind of speaking, whether you call it a speech problem, or just chalk it up to variation, is widespread, but accepting both zhè and zè in standard Mandarin just doesn’t seem to jibe with the rest of the system.

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