Four tones (Chinese)

An old illustration of the four tone classes, in their traditional representation on a hand. In modern use, the diacritics all face the character, as in the table above.

The four tones of Chinese poetry and dialectology (simplified Chinese: 四声; traditional Chinese: 四聲; pinyin: sìshēng) are four traditional tone classes^[1] of Chinese words. They play an important role in Chinese poetry and in comparative studies of tonal development in the modern varieties of Chinese, both in traditional Chinese and in Western linguistics. They derive from the four phonemic tones of Middle Chinese, and are named even AKA level (平 píng), rising (上 shǎng), going AKA departing (去 qù), and entering AKA checked (入 rù).^[2] (The last three are collectively referred to as oblique 仄 (zè), an important concept in poetic tone patterns.) Due to historic splits and mergers, none of the modern varieties of Chinese have the exact four tones of Middle Chinese, but they are noted in rhyming dictionaries.

Early Middle Chinese had three phonemic tones in most syllables, but no tonal distinctions in checked syllables ending in the stop consonants /p/, /t/, /k/. In most circumstances, every syllable had its own tone; hence a multisyllabic word typically had a tone assigned to each syllable. (In modern varieties, the situation is sometimes more complicated. Although each syllable typically still has its own underlying tone in most dialects, some syllables in the speech of some varieties may have their tone modified into other tones or neutralized entirely, by a process known as tone sandhi.)

Because the actual pitch contour of the syllables ending in a stop consonant was quite distinct from the contour of any of the three phonemic tones, traditional Chinese dialectology reckons these syllables as possessing a fourth tone, known technically as a checked tone. This tone is known in traditional Chinese linguistics as the entering (入 rù) tone, a term commonly used in English as well. The other three tones were termed the level (or even) tone (平 píng), the rising (上 shǎng) tone, and the departing (or going) tone (去 qù).^[3] They are nearly always presented in the order level (平 píng), rising (上 shǎng), departing (去 qù), entering (入 rù), and correspondingly numbered 1 2 3 4 in modern discussions. From the perspective of modern historical linguistics, there is often value in treating the "entering tone" as a tone despite its non-phonemic status, because syllables possessing this "tone" typically develop differently from syllables possessing any of the three phonemic tones. For clarity, these four "tones" are often referred to as tone classes, with each word belonging to one of the four tone classes. This reflects the fact that the lexical division of words into tone classes is based on tone, but not all tone classes necessarily have a distinct phonemic tone associated with them.

In Late Middle Chinese (LMC), each of the Early Middle Chinese (EMC) tone classes split in two, depending on the nature of the initial consonant of the syllable in question. Discussions of LMC and the various modern varieties will often number these split tone classes from 1 through 8, keeping the same ordering as before. For example, LMC/modern tone classes 1 and 2 derive from EMC tone class 1; LMC/modern tone classes 3 and 4 derive from EMC tone class 2; etc. The odd-numbered tone classes 1 3 5 7 are termed dark (陰 yīn), while the even-numbered tone classes 2 4 6 8 are termed light (陽 yáng). Hence, for example, LMC/modern tone class 5 is known in Chinese as the yīn qù ("dark departing") tone, indicating that it is the yīn variant of the EMC qù tone (EMC tone 3). In order to clarify the relationship between the EMC and LMC tone classes, some authors notate the LMC tone classes as 1a 1b 2a 2b 3a 3b 4a 4b in place of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, where a and b correspond directly to Chinese yīn and yáng, respectively.

Names

In Middle Chinese, each of the tone names carries the tone it identifies: 平 level ꜁biajŋ, 上 rising ꜃dʑɨaŋ, 去 departing kʰɨə꜄, and 入 entering ȵip꜇.^[4] However, in some modern languages this is no longer true. This loss of correspondence is most notable in the case of the entering tone—that is, syllables checked in a stop consonant [p̚], [t̚], or [k̚] in Middle Chinese—which has been lost from most dialects of Mandarin and redistributed among the other tones.

In modern languages, tones which derive from the four Middle Chinese tone-classes may be split into two registers, dark (陰 yīn) and light (陽 yáng) depending on the voicing of the onset. When all four tone-classes split, eight tones result: dark level (陰平), light level (陽平), dark rising (陰上), light rising (陽上), dark departing (陰去), light departing (陽去), dark entering (陰入), and light entering (陽入). Sometimes these have been termed upper and lower registers respectively, although this may be a misnomer, as in some dialects the dark registers may have the lower tone, and the light register the higher tone.

Chinese dictionaries mark the tones with diacritical marks at the four corners of a character:^[5] ꜀平 level, ꜂上 rising, 去꜄ departing, and 入꜆ entering. When yin and yang tones are distinguished, these are the diacritics for the yin (dark) tones; the yang (light) tones are indicated by underscoring the diacritic: ꜁平 light level, ꜃上 light rising, 去꜅ light departing, 入꜇ light entering. These diacritics are also sometimes used when the phonetic tone is unknown, as in the reconstructions of Middle Chinese at the beginning of this section. However, in this article the circled numbers ①②③④⑤⑥⑦⑧ will be used, as in the table below, with the odd numbers ①③⑤⑦ indicating either 'dark' tones or tones which have not split, and even numbers ②④⑥⑧ indicating 'light' tones. Thus level tones are numbered ①②, the rising tones ③④, the departing tones ⑤⑥, and the entering (checked) tones ⑦⑧.

In Yue (incl. Cantonese) the dark entering tone further splits into high (高陰入) and low (低陰入) registers, depending on the length of the nucleus, for a total of nine tone-classes. Some dialects have a complex tone splittings, where the terms dark and light are insufficient to cover the possibilities.

The number of tone-classes is based on Chinese tradition, and is as much register as it is actual tone. The entering 'tones', for example, are only distinct because they are checked by a final stop consonant, not because they have a tone contour that contrasts with non-entering tones. In dialects such as Shanghainese, tone-classes are numbered even though they are not phonemically distinct.

Distribution in modern Chinese

Sample dialects and their realization of tone are given below.

Note: Different authors typically have different opinions as to the shapes of Chinese tones. Tones typically have a slight purely phonetic drop at the end in citation form. It is therefore likely that a tone with a drop of one unit (54, say, or 21) is not distinct from a level tone (a 55 or 22); on the other hand, what one author hears as a significant drop (53 or 31) may be perceived by another as a smaller drop; therefore it is often ambiguous whether a transcription like 54 or 21 is a level or contour tone. Similarly, a slight drop before a rise, such as a 214, may be due to the speaker approaching the target tone, and may therefore also not be distinctive (from 14).^[6]

§ Irregular development, due to dialect mixing in the capital.

ʰ A muddy consonant becomes aspirated here rather than tenuis. (Note a historical entering tone will not be aspirated.)

ʰ* A muddy consonant becomes aspirated here in colloquial speech, but in reading pronunciations it is tenuis and the syllable becomes tone ⑥.

̚ The entering tone(s) are distinct because they are checked by a final stop. (Wenzhounese is an exception: Entering tone is distinct without a final stop.)

° In Wu and Old Xiang, the 'light' tones are always dependent on voiced initials, and so are not phonemically distinct. In Wenzhounese, rising tone is likewise marked with a final glottal stop.

† In Zhangzhou and Amoy Hokkien variants of Min Nan, the traditional rising tone with former voiced obstruent onset has become tone ③ in literary reading pronunciations but tone ⑥ in colloquial pronunciations.^[8] In the Quanzhou variant of Min Nan, it is the sonorants which were voiced and in the rising tone in Middle Chinese that have split. In literary pronunciations they have merged into tone ③, but they have become tone ④ in colloquial pronunciations.^[8]

‡ In the Quanzhou Hokkien variety of Min Nan, the traditional 'light' and 'dark' departing tone categories are only differentiated by their behavior under tone sandhi; they are pronounced the same in isolation.^[8]

References