Erhua

Érhuà (zh-c|c=儿化) refers to the r-coloring or addition of the "ér"(儿) sound (transcribed in IPA as IPA|/ɚ/) to syllables in spoken Mandarin Chinese. It is most common in the speeches of North China as a tool of diminution. The Standard Mandarin spoken in government-produced educational and examination recordings features erhua to some extent, as in 哪儿(nǎr), 一点儿(yìdiǎnr), or 好玩儿(hǎowánr), though many Southern Chinese find the sound distasteful and usually avoid these words, replacing them with 哪里(nǎlǐ), 一点(yìdiǎn), or 好玩(hǎowán).
#In a small number of words, such as 二 "two", 耳 "ear", etc. All of these words are pronounced as IPA| [ɑɚ] with no initial consonant.
#As a noun suffix (Traditional: -兒, Simplified: -儿). The suffix combines with the final, and regular but complex changes occur as a result.

The basic rules controlling the surface pronunciation of erhua are as follows:

*Coda [i] and [n] are deleted.
*Coda IPA| [ŋ] is deleted, but the syllable becomes nasalized.
*Main vowels [i] and [y] become glides and have a IPA| [ə] added, which is rhoticized as [ɚ] .
*Certain vowels are changed: [a] becomes IPA| [ɑ] ; [e] , IPA| [z̩] and IPA| [ʐ̩] become IPA| [ə] ; IPA| [ɛ] in the finals IPA| [iɛn] and IPA| [yɛn] becomes IPA| [ɑ] (but it remains in the finals IPA| [iɛ] and IPA| [yɛ] ).

The following chart shows how the finals from the above chart are affected by the addition of this suffix:

The behavior of retroflexed finals provides some evidence for the phonemic analysis of main vowels. The fact that IPA| [iɛn] and IPA| [yɛn] become IPA| [iɑɻ] and IPA| [yɑɻ] confirms their analysis as /ian/ and /yan/ (rather than IPA|/iən/ and IPA|/yən/), and the differing behavior of IPA| [z̩] / [ʐ̩] and [i] suggests that these should not be merged (contrary to Pinyin). The behavior of IPA| [ə] and IPA| [ɤ] , however, is problematic, since it suggests that they should not be merged, contrary to most analyses. (An alternative, consistent with retroflex behavior, would be to merge IPA| [ə] and IPA| [z̩] / [ʐ̩] as a single IPA|/ə/ phoneme and maintain IPA| [ɤ] as a separate phoneme occurring only in a single IPA|/ɤ/ final. Some evidence for this comes from standard Beijing pronunciation, where IPA| [ə] and IPA| [z̩] / [ʐ̩] are simple vowels but "IPA| [ɤ] " is actually a complex diphthong, pronounced approximately as IPA| [ɯʌ] -- a combination of the vowels in Standard American "put" and "putt".)

Examples

* 一瓶(yìpíng)(one bottle) → 一瓶儿(yìpíngr), pronounced "yìpírng"
* 公园(gōngyuán)(public garden) →　公园儿(gōngyuánr), pronounced "gōngyuár"
* 小孩(xiǎohái) (small child) → 小孩儿(xiǎoháir), pronounced "xǐaohár"
* 事 (shì) (thing) → 事儿(shìr), pronounced "shèr"

External links

* [http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.102/s06/audio/Unit%205.15%20Pronun%20erhua.mp3 Erhua pronunciation MP3] on MIT OpenCourseWare
* [http://www.bjshengr.com/bjs/2008/01/does-the-beijing-r-mean-anything/ blog discussion of functions of Erhua in meaning, with sound samples]