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| On the Origins of Words Denoting Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow in Ningbo Dialect |
| Wang Weihui |
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Abstract There are altogether nine words denoting days with ″today″ as the reference point in Ningbo dialect: ″dadaqianri / toutouqianri(大大前日/头头前日)″, ″daqianri / touqianri(大前日/头前日)″, ″qianri ( zi ) / qianmo ( zi ) (前日（子）/前末（子）)″, ″shangmo ( zi ) / zuomo ( zi ) / shangri ( zi ) / zuori ( zi ) (上末（子）、昨末（子）/上日（子）、昨日（子）)″, ″jimo ( zi ) / jinzhao ( zi )( 即末（子）/今朝（子）)″, ″mingzhao ( zi )( 明朝（子）)″, ″houri ( zi )( 后日（子）)″, ″dahouri / touhouri(大后日/头后日)″, and ″dadahouri / toutouhouri(大大后日/头头后日)″. These words fall into two groups of ″ri″ (日, the Sun) group and ″zhao″ (朝, morning) group according to different core morphemes: ″zhao″ group including only ″mingzhao″ (明朝, tomorrow) and a semi ″jinzhao″ (今朝, today) while ″ri″ group including the rest. In general these words are ancient with ″ri″ group dating from archaic Chinese and ″zhao″ group from the Six Dynasties. In ″ri″ group there is a variation ″m??″ as a result of sandhi of an early ″kim?ie? (今日, today)″：?iem??ie? → ?iem?mie? → ?ie??mie?, which is even earlier than the change of ″-m→-n/-?″ in ″jin(今)″ ，but the exact time is difficult to date. This variation can also be detected in dialects in southwest Shanxi, southwest Shandong and the Pearl River Delta while in Wu dialect it exists only in the Yongjiang area and the distribution diversity indicates that the variation is possibly a result of individual changes instead of language contact. ″M??″ is also in ″z??m?? (?i)″ (上日（子）, yesterday) and even in ″?im?? (?i)″ (前日（子）, the day before yesterday) by analogy, which is rarely seen in other dialects. It is difficult to find when ″jimo ( zi )″ , ″shangmo ( zi )″ and ″qianmo ( zi )″ came into being and ″qianmo ( zi )″ seems to appear in the recent 90 years for it is not documented in Chao (1928). ″Jinzhao″ can be found in northern Wu（吴） dialect and has an influence on Ningbo dialect. In the early missionary literature both ″jinzhao″ and ″jinri″ are in use and it is also documented in Chao (1928). On the other hand, ″jinzhao″ has not taken the place of ″jimo″ in Ningbo dialect, which indicates that the word denoting ″today″ is steadier than the word denoting ″tomorrow″. For the word denoting ″tomorrow″, ″mingri″ is used in early Ningbo dialect; ″mingzhao″ in use nowadays is obviously a loanword from the northern areas. Compared to the words that have undergone changes due to sandhi ( ″jinri″ ), language contact ( ″mingzhao″, ″jinzhao″ ), effects of folk etymology ( ″shangri″, ″touqianri″ ) and analogy of other forms ( ″shangri″, ″qianri″, ″touhouri″), the word meaning ″the day after tomorrow″ ″????ie? (后日)″ is of the least change. In research of the history of dialect lexicon, the chronological order of words can be revealed through historical-comparative method, but the exact time is difficult to date due to the lack of accurate proof in ancient literature.
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