Amoy dialect

A comparison between Amoy and other Southern Min languages can be found there.

Amoy is similar to other Southern Min variants in that it largely preserves the Middle Chinese tone system of six distinct tones in syllables which do not end in a stop consonant and two tones in syllables which do end in a stop consonant (the checked tones). The tones are traditionally numbered from 1 through 8, with 4 and 8 being the checked tones. The distinction between tones 2 and 6 has been lost among most speakers.

Amoy has extremely extensive tone sandhi (tone-changing) rules: in an utterance, only the last syllable pronounced is not affected by the rules. What an 'utterance' is, in the context of this language, is an ongoing topic for linguistic research. For the purpose of this article, an utterance may be considered a word, a phrase, or a short sentence. The diagram illustrates the rules that govern the pronunciation of a tone on each of the syllables affected (that is, all but the last in an utterance):

Like other languages of Southern Min, Amoy has complex rules for literary and colloquial readings of Chinese characters. For example, the character for big/great, 大, has a vernacular reading of tōa ([tua˧]), but a literary reading of tāi ([tai˧]). Because of the loose nature of the rules governing when to use a given pronunciation, a learner of Amoy must often simply memorize the appropriate reading for a word on a case-by-case basis. For single-syllable words, it is more common to use the vernacular pronunciation. This situation is comparable to the on and kun readings of the Japanese language.

The vernacular readings are generally thought to predate the literary readings, as is the case with the Min Chinese varieties;[11] the literary readings appear to have evolved from Middle Chinese.[12] The following chart illustrates some of the more commonly seen sound shifts:

• Word-initial alveolar consonants /ts, tsʰ, dz/ when occurring before /i/ are pronounced as alveo-palatal sounds [tɕ, tɕʰ, dʑ].
• /l/ can fluctuate freely in initial position as either a flap or voiced stop [ɾ], [d].
• [ʔ] can occur in both word initial and final position.
• /m ŋ/ when occurring before /m̩ ŋ̍/ can be pronounced as voiceless sounds [m̥], [ŋ̊].

• Final consonants are pronounced as unreleased [p̚ t̚ k̚].

Amoy complement constructions are roughly parallel to Mandarin ones, although there are variations in the choice of lexical term. The following are examples of constructions that Amoy employs.

In the case of adverbs:

Mandarin: tā pǎo de kuài (他跑得快)

In the case of the adverb "very":

Mandarin: tā pǎo de hěn kuài (他跑得很快)

Mandarin: tā pǎo bù kuài (他跑不快)

Mandarin: tā kàn de dào (他看得到)

For the negative,

Mandarin: tā kàn bù dào (他看不到)

For the adverb "so," Amoy uses kah (甲) instead of Mandarin de (得):

Mandarin: tā xià de huà dōu shuō bù chūlái (他嚇得話都說不出來)

Negative particle syntax is parallel to Mandarin about 70% of the time, although lexical terms used differ from those in Mandarin. For many lexical particles, there is no single standard Hanji character to represent these terms (e.g. m̄, a negative particle, can be variously represented by 毋, 呣, and 唔), but the most commonly used ones are presented below in examples. The following are commonly used negative particles:

1. m̄ (毋/伓) - is not + noun (Mandarin 不, bù)

   i m̄-sī gún lāu-bú. (伊毋是阮老母) "She is not my mother."

2. m̄ (毋/伓) - does not/will not + verb (Mandarin 不, bù)

   i m̄ lâi. (伊毋來) "He will not come."

3. verb + bōe (袂/𣍐 (⿰勿會)) + particle - is not able to (Mandarin 不, bù)

   góa khòaⁿ-bōe-tio̍h. (我看袂著) "I am not able to see it."

4. bōe (袂/𣍐 (⿰勿會)) + helping verb - cannot (opposite of ē 會, "is able to") (Mandarin 不, bù)

   i bōe-hiáu kóng Eng-gú. (伊袂曉講英語) "He can't speak English."

   • helping verbs that go with bōe (袂)

     bōe-sái (袂使) - is not permitted to (Mandarin 不可以 bù kěyǐ)

     bōe-hiáu (袂曉) - does not know how to (Mandarin 不會, búhuì)

     bōe-tàng (袂當) - not able to (Mandarin 不能, bùnéng)

5. mài (莫/勿愛) - do not (imperative) (Mandarin 別, bié)

   mài kóng! (莫講) "Don't speak!"

6. bô (無) - do not + helping verb (Mandarin 不, bù)

   i bô beh lâi. (伊無欲來) "He is not going to come."

   • helping verbs that go with bô (無):

     beh (欲) - want to + verb; will + verb

     ài (愛) - must + verb

     èng-kai (應該) - should + verb

     kah-ì (合意) - like to + verb

7. bô (無) - does not have (Mandarin 沒有, méiyǒu)

   i bô chîⁿ. (伊無錢) "He does not have any money."

8. bô (無) - did not (Mandarin 沒有, méiyǒu)

   i bô lâi. (伊無來) "He did not come."

9. bô (無) - is not + adjective (Mandarin 不, bù)

   i bô súi. (伊無媠/水) "She is not beautiful."

   • hó (好) ("good") is an exception, as it can use both m̄ and bô.

Commonly seen particles include:

• 與 (hō·) - indicates passive voice (Mandarin 被, bèi)

• 共 (kā) - identifies the object (Mandarin 把, bǎ)

• 加 (ke) - "more"

• 共 (kā) - identifies the object

• 濟 (chōe) - "more"