16

Context:

enter image description here

Why "え" is used here? What does it mean?

aush
  • 285
  • 1
  • 5

1 Answers1

21

The small in 手ぇふった is a way of indicating in writing the compensatory lengthening of the vowel in a single-mora word that sometimes occurs when the following case particle is omitted in familiar speech. This is described in The Phonology of Japanese (Labrune 2012) in section 2.7.5, 'Prosodic Lengthening'.

So as Yang Muye says, it means 手をふった.

  • So it's not dialectal? Because I read somewhere that it was. But in my opinion it seems fairly common. – Yang Muye Jul 11 '15 at 04:16
  • 4
    @YangMuye I don't think it's dialect. We pronounce it as [てぇふった]{LLHHL} in Kansai area, and I think it's pronounced like [てぇふった]{HHLLH} in Kanto area. – Chocolate Jul 11 '15 at 05:28