Erhua (pronounced as /ɚ˧˥xwä˥˩/); also called "erization" or "rhotacization of syllable finals"[1]) is a phonological process that adds r-coloring or the er (Chinese: 儿; Chinese: 兒 pronounced as /ɚ/) sound to syllables in spoken Mandarin Chinese. Erhuayin is the pronunciation of "er" after rhotacization of syllable finals.
It is common in most varieties of Mandarin as a diminutive suffix for nouns, though some dialects also use it for other grammatical purposes. The Standard Chinese spoken in government-produced educational and examination recordings features erhua to some extent, as in Chinese: 哪儿 'where', Chinese: 一点儿 'a little', and Chinese: 好玩儿 'fun'. Colloquial speech in many northern dialects has more extensive erhua than the standardized language. Southwestern Mandarin dialects such as those of Chongqing and Chengdu also have erhua. By contrast, many Southern Chinese who speak their own languages may have difficulty pronouncing the sound or may simply prefer not to pronounce it, and usually avoid words with erhua when speaking Standard Chinese; for example, the three examples listed above may be replaced with the synonyms Chinese: 哪里, Chinese: 一点, Chinese: 好玩 . Furthermore, erhua is extremely rare or absent in Taiwanese Mandarin speakers.[2] [3]
Only a small number of words in standardized Mandarin, such as Chinese: 二 'two' and Chinese: 耳 'ear' have r-colored vowels that do not result from the erhua process. All of the non-erhua r-colored syllables have no initial consonant, and are traditionally pronounced pronounced as /ɚ/ in Beijing dialect and in conservative varieties. In the recent decades, the vowel in the toned syllable er, especially, has been lowered in many accents, making the syllable come to approach or acquire a quality like ar—i.e. pronounced as /äʵ/~pronounced as /ɐʵ/ with the appropriate tone.
In some publications, particularly those on Chinese linguistics, the Chinese: 儿; Chinese: 兒 in terms with erhua is written with a smaller size to distinguish its non-syllabic nature. This also distinguishes it from the same character being used as a noun meaning 'son'. This practice may have been introduced by Yuen Ren Chao. The small-sized characters have been proposed to Unicode[4] and provisionally assigned by Unicode in 2024[5] .
The basic rules controlling the surface pronunciation of erhua are as follows:
Following the rules that coda pronounced as /[i]/ and pronounced as /[n]/ are deleted, noted above, the finals in the syllables Chinese: 伴儿 (bànr) Chinese: 盖儿 (gàir) are both pronounced as /[ɐʵ]/; similarly, the finals in the syllables Chinese: 妹儿 (mèir) and Chinese: 份儿 (fènr) are both also pronounced as /[ɚ]/. The final in Chinese: 趟儿 (tàngr) is similar but nasalized, because of the rule that the pronounced as /[ŋ]/ is deleted and the syllable is nasalized.
The realization of ar, i.e. the erhua of coda-less a, varies. It may be realized as pronounced as /[äʵ]/,[6] distinct from anr and air, or it may be merged with the latter two. That is, a word like Chinese: 把儿 may be realized with either pronounced as /[äʵ]/ or pronounced as /[ɐʵ]/ depending on the speaker.
Because of the rule that pronounced as /[i]/ and pronounced as /[y]/ become glides, the finals of Chinese: 气儿 and Chinese: 劲儿 are both pronounced as /[jɚ]/, and Chinese: 裙儿 and Chinese: 驴儿 are both pronounced as /[ɥɚ]/.
The following chart shows how the finals are affected by the addition of this suffix:[7] [8] [9] [10]
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Aside from its use as a diminutive, erhua in the Beijing dialect also serves to differentiate words; for example, Chinese: 白面 'flour' and Chinese: 白面儿 'heroin'.[11] Additionally, some words may sound unnatural without rhotacization, as is the case with Chinese: 花 or Chinese: 花儿 (or 'flower'). In these cases, the erhua serves to label the word as a noun (and sometimes a specific noun among a group of homophones). Since in modern Mandarin many single-syllable words (in which there are both nouns and adjectives) share the same pronunciation, adding such a label on nouns can reduce the complication.
As an example, the syllable may mean one of Chinese: 碗 'bowl', Chinese: 婉 'gentleness', Chinese: 挽'to take with hand', Chinese: 皖 (a short form of Anhui), Chinese: 宛 (a place name and surname), and Chinese: 晚.'late', 'night' However, of these words, only Chinese: 碗儿 'bowl', 'the little bowl' can generally have erhua. Further, many people erhua Chinese: 晚, but only when it means 'night' and not 'late'. The rest never has erhua and erhua attempts will cause incomprehension.
Erhua does not always occur at the end of a word in Beijing dialect. Although it must occur at the end of the syllable, it can be added to the middle of many words, and there is not a rule to explain when it should be added to the middle. For example, Chinese: 板儿砖 'brick', especially the brick used as a weapon) should not be Chinese: 板砖儿 .
The composition of the erhua system varies within Beijing, with the following variations reported. Apart from sub dialects, many sociological factors are involved, such as gender, age, ethnicity, inner/outer city, south–north.[12]
The realization and behavior of erhua are very different among Mandarin dialects. Tones are marked by the tone diacritics of the corresponding tone in Standard Chinese, and do not necessarily represent the actual realization of tones. Some rules mentioned before are still generally applied, such as the deletion of coda pronounced as /[i]/ and pronounced as /[n]/ and the nasalization with the coda pronounced as /[ŋ]/. Certain vowels' qualities may also change. However, depending on the exact dialect, the actual behavior, rules and realization can differ greatly.
Erhua in Chengdu and Chongqing is collapsed to only one set: pronounced as /[ɚ]/ pronounced as /[jɚ]/ pronounced as /[wɚ]/ pronounced as /[ɥɚ]/, Many words become homophonous as a result, for example Chinese: 板儿 'board' and Chinese: 本儿 'booklet', both pronounced pronounced as /[pɚ]/ with the appropriate tone. It is technically feasible to write all erhua in Pinyin simply as -er.
Besides its diminutive and differentiating functions, erhua in these two dialects can also make the language more vivid.[13] In Chongqing, erhua can also be derogatory.[14]
Different from Beijing, erhua can be applied to people's names and kinship words, such as (diminutive of the name Cao Ying Chinese: 曹英儿) and 'little sister' (Chinese: 小妹儿).
Erhua occurs in more names of places, vegetables and little animals compared to Beijing.
Erhua causes sandhi for the reduplication of monosyllabic words. In both dialects, the application of erhua to a monosyllabic noun usually results in its reduplication, e.g. Chinese: 盘 'dish' becomes Chinese: 盘盘儿 'little dish'. The second syllable invariably has or the second tone.
In Chongqing, erhua causes sandhi in some bisyllabic reduplicative adverbs, where second syllable acquires or the first tone.
Some dialects of Zhongyuan Mandarin preserve the coda pronounced as //ʔ//. They are typically deleted in erhua like with the codas pronounced as //i// and pronounced as //n//.
Some dialects distinguish pairs like -ir/-inr and -ür/-ünr, making words like Chinese: 鸡儿 'little chicken' and Chinese: 今儿 'today' different. For example, in Huojia, the former is pronounced as //tɕiʵ// while the latter is pronounced as //tɕjəʵ//.[15]
Erhua causes the medial pronounced as //i// to be dropped and the (third) tone to assimilate to the (second) tone, the original tone of the morpheme Chinese: 儿.
The Nanking dialect preserves the checked syllable and thus possesses a coda pronounced as /link/. erhua checked syllables are realized with pronounced as //-ɻʔ//.
Many Mandarin dialects have a handful of words exhibiting a fossilized lexical form of nasal-coda erhua. An example is Chinese: 鼻涕儿 pronounced as //pi2.tʰiŋ// 'nasal mucus', cf. the etymon Chinese: 鼻涕 pronounced as //pi2.tʰi//.
Wu Chinese varieties exhibit a similar phenomenon with the morpheme {{linktext|兒, generally pronounced pronounced as //ŋ//. The erhua coda is almost always a nasal coda instead of a rhotic one. Some lects' erhua also causes vowel umlaut.[16] [17] [18] [19] The exception is Hangzhounese, which adds a er² pronounced as //ɦəl// final instead, which is phonotactically a rhotic.[20] [21]
For example, {{linktext|麻將 (Shanghainese: mo-cian, 'Mahjong') is etymologically 麻雀兒 (mo-ciaq-ng 'little sparrow'), from 麻雀 (mo-ciaq, pronounced as //mo.t͡si̯ɐʔ// 'sparrow'). The syllable 雀 (ciaq, pronounced as //t͡si̯ɐʔ//) undergoes erhua with the morpheme 兒 (ng, pronounced as //ŋ̩//), resulting in the syllable cian pronounced as //t͡si̯aŋ//, which is then represented by the homophonous but etymologically unrelated word 將 cian pronounced as //t͡si̯aŋ//. Further examples include:
Yue languages such as Cantonese have a small number of terms with 兒 (ji⁴, pronounced as //i²¹//) that exhibits tone change, such as the term 乞兒 (hat¹ ji⁴⁻¹, pronounced as //hɐt⁵ i²¹⁻⁵//, 'beggar'). Cantonese also exhibits a diminutive formation known as changed tone by altering the base tone contour to that of the dark rising tone (Chinese: 陰上), such as the term 廣州話 (gwong² zau¹ waa⁶⁻², 'Cantonese'), which etymologically may be an erhua based construction.[24] [25] [26]