Ci talk:1014376239

The ABC definition seems to be derived from ACE ("A Chinese-English Dictionary" - Wei Dongya, ed., 1978), which says

xiǎopéngyǒu 1. children 2. (form of address by an adult to a child) little boy or girl; child

In 2001, the pinyin was changed to xiǎopéngyou (i.e., yǒu was changed to neutral tone you). In the PC version of Wenlin, there is a note in the definition rem@TB2001.02 Changed you3 to you0, for consistency with peng2you0.

(Are notes like that included in the Wenlin Wiki, by the way?)

1) Why does the pronunciation of 小朋友 have to be consistent with the pronunciation of a different word (朋友)? (In English, the stress is on the first syllable of "continent", for example, but it's on the third syllable of "continental". It doesn't make sense to insist that the pronunciation of "continent" and "continental" be consistent. Is the situation different in Mandarin?) Many dictionaries give xiǎopéngyǒu as the pinyin for 小朋友, including New Century (FLTRP), New Age (Commercial Press), Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, Oxford Chinese Dictionary, Xiandai Hanyu Cidian etc., and the two audio clips at Forvo sound like third tone to me. https://forvo.com/word/%E5%B0%8F%E6%9C%8B%E5%8F%8B/#zh

I should add that I'm not pushing for the pinyin to be changed back to yǒu. I'm just interested in the answers to the questions I asked above.

2) In ABC's definition, the expression "adult address to a child" seems to me to be incorrect English. 小朋友 is a form of address, as the ACE definition states. It's not an address. I know what the ABC definition means, but I think it's poorly worded, and the original ACE definition puts it correctly. Richwarm (talk) 23:54, 27 April 2017 (UTC)