Matsu dialect


Matsu dialect is the local dialect of Matsu Islands, Taiwan. Native speakers also call it Bàng-huâ, meaning the language spoken in everyday life. It is recognised one of the statutory languages for public transport announcements in Lienchiang County, Republic of China.
It is a subdialect of Fuzhou dialect, Eastern Min. Matsu dialect is quite similar to Changle dialect, another subdialect of Fuzhou dialect.

Phonology

Matsu dialect has 17 initials, 46 rimes and 7 tones.

Initials

// and // exist only in connected speech.

Rimes

There are 46 rimes in Matsu dialect.
monophthongcompound vowelnasal coda checked coda

Many rimes come in pairs: in the table above, the one to the left represents a close rime, while the other represents an open rime. The close/open rimes are closely related with the tones.

Tone

The relationship between tone and rime

In Matsu dialect, level tone, rising tone and light entering should read in close rimes ; departing tone and dark entering should read in open rimes.
For example, "" have two pronunciations, // in close rime and // in open rime; "" have two pronunciations, // in close rime and // in open rime. so we get the table:
Tone namedark levellight levelrisingdark departinglight departingdark enteringlight entering
Tone contour55 51 33 312 131 13 5
Rime typeclose rimeclose rimeclose rimeopen rimeopen rimeopen rimeclose rime
Foochow Romanized
Pronunciation

Close rime tone "" should be pronounced as instead of ; and open rime tone "" should be pronounced as instead of.

Sandhi and assimilation

Tone sandhi

Matsu dialect has extremely extensive tone sandhi rules: in an utterance, only the last syllable pronounced is not affected by the rules. The two-syllable tonal sandhi rules are shown in the table below :
In the table above, "dark entering A" means dark entering coda ended with, "dark entering B" means ended with. In mordern spoken language, it's hard to distinguish with each other in individual syllable, but we can find their differences in tone sandhi.
Like Fuzhou dialect, the tonal sandhi rules of more than two syllables display further complexities.

Perseverative assimilation

The two-syllable initial assimilation rules are shown in the table below:
The Coda of the Former SyllableThe Initial Assimilation of the Latter Syllable
Null coda
  • and change to ;
  • , and, and change to ;
  • and change to ;
  • , and change to null initial;
  • and remain unchanged.
Nasal coda
  • and change to ;
  • ,,, and change to ;
  • and change to ;
  • ,, and null initial change to ;
  • and remain unchanged.
    • entering coda remain unchanged.

    Anticipatory assimilation

    In Matsu dialect, if rime type of the former syllable is changed while tone sandhi occurred, the rime of the former syllable should be changed to adapt [|the rule of close/open rimes].
    For example, "技" is a syllable which has dark departing tone, it's an open rime; "師" has a dark level tone. When combined together as the phrase "技師", "技" changes its tonal value to rising tone. Rising tone is a close rime tone, therefore the pronunciation as a whole is.