{"id":9212,"date":"2019-11-01T11:32:33","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T11:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/chinese-words-phrases\/tones-in-chinese\/"},"modified":"2019-11-01T11:32:33","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T11:32:33","slug":"tones-in-chinese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/fr\/tones-in-chinese\/","title":{"rendered":"Tones in Chinese"},"content":{"rendered":"
Chinese is a to<\/em>nal language. All Chinese languages (or “dialects”) have tones.
Although to<\/em>nal languages may sound exotic, there is nothing special a<\/em>bout to<\/em>nes from a physical or physiological point of view. No, Chinese do not possess exotic tone-producing apparatus. The physiological mechanism for producing to<\/em>nes is the same as that for producing intonation, which all languages, including English, employ. The same physiological mechanism is also used for singing. Physically, tones, into<\/em>nations and singing are all variation of frequency over time.<\/p>\n

In terms of pitch contours, the English question into<\/em>nation realized on such syllables as “really?” is quite similar to the rising tone of Mandarin Chinese; the into<\/em>nation co<\/em>ntour used in declarative sentences as that in the emphatic “yes!” also resembles the falling tone in Mandarin. What IS special a<\/em>bout to<\/em>nes is that different pitch co<\/em>ntours causes otherwise identical syllables to have distinct meanings. On the other hand, pitch variation used in English into<\/em>nation o<\/em>nly co<\/em>nveys subtle nuances, such as doubt, certainty, and so on.<\/p>\n

Some co<\/em>ncrete examples.<\/p>\n

Mandarin first. There is of course the textbook example of the quadruplet:<\/p>\n

M\u0101 ‘mother’; Má ‘hemp’; M\u01ce ‘horse’; Mà ‘curse’<\/p>\n

You can even form a sentence with three of the four to<\/em>nal variants.<\/p>\n

M\u0101 mà m\u01ce
‘Mother curses the horse’<\/p>\n

Someone o<\/em>nce used a very memorable to<\/em>nal triplet in discussion of dieting. There are three ways to get fat, he said, t\u0101ng, táng and t\u01ceng. In English, these three syllables mean “soup”, “sugar” and “to lie down” respectively.<\/p>\n

In Cantonese, the same syllable spelled as si can have at least three different meanings depending on what tone it is associated with:<\/p>\n

Si with high tone = ‘poetry’<\/p>\n

Si with rising tone =‘history’<\/p>\n

Si with low falling tone =‘time’<\/p>\n

So it is possible to co<\/em>nstruct a sentence with more than one to<\/em>nally distinct cases of si:<\/p>\n

Koei gei si(low tone) sie si (high tone)?
‘What time does he write poetry?’<\/p>\n

A more dramatic example from Canto<\/em>nese can be seen in the SIX to<\/em>nes that can be used for the syllable yau.<\/p>\n

Yau with high tone = ‘worry’<\/p>\n

Yau with rising tone = ‘oil paint\/varnish’<\/p>\n

Yau with mid level tone = ‘thin in diameter’<\/p>\n

Yau with low rising tone = ‘have’<\/p>\n

Yau with low level tone = ‘again’<\/p>\n

Yau with low falling tone = ‘oil’<\/p>\n

There are six different ways to indicate to<\/em>nes in Chinese:<\/p>\n

a). with numbers 1 through 5 (1 being lowest and 5 highest) indicating the pitch height of the beginning, ending and, if needed, the mid-point of a to<\/em>nal contour. For example, the four Mandarin to<\/em>nes are 55 (high), 35 (rising), 214 (dipping) and 51 (falling). These are mostly used in scholarly discussion of tones.<\/p>\n

b). with tone letters comprising of a vertical bar indicating the whole pitch range and another line either to the left or right of the verbal bar that shows the pitch contour. These are also mostly used in scholarly discussions.<\/p>\n

c). with diacritic marks which are suggestive of the shapes of the pitch co<\/em>ntours but are not necessarily accurate. The four Mandarin to<\/em>nes are m\u0101, má, m\u01ce, mà. These are most commo<\/em>nly used in language textbooks.<\/p>\n

d). with English letters. These are not as common.<\/p>\n

e). with a combination of tone marks and English letters, such as the use of ‘h’ to indicate low pitches in the Yale romanization of Cantonese. For example, the low rising tone of language is spelled as yúh and the rising tone of good is spelled as hóu without the ‘h’.<\/p>\n

f). with numbers 1 through N (N being the number of to<\/em>nes in the language) standing for the type of tone. The Mandarin four to<\/em>nes are sometimes represented as ma1 (m\u0101), ma2 (má), ma3 (m\u01ce), ma4 (mà). This is a very arbitrary system and is used o<\/em>nly as a makeshift device when tone marks cannot be readily produced.<\/p>\n


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