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"Old Chinese was a toneless language. Tones arose between Old Chinese and Early Middle Chinese (that is between 500 BCE and 500 CE) as a result of the loss of final laryngeals." The four tones of Middle Chinese, 平 píng level, 上 shǎng rising, 去 qù departing, and 入 rù entering, all
The four tones of Middle Chinese—level (平), rising (上), departing (去), and entering (入) tones—are categorized into level (平) tones and oblique (仄) tones. Tones that are not level are oblique. When tone patterns are used in poetry, the pattern in which level and oblique tones occur in one line is often the inverse of that of the ...
The Qieyun rime dictionary was created by Lu Fayan in 601 as a guide to proper pronunciation, particularly for the reading of classic texts. The dictionary divided characters between the four tones, which were subdivided into 193 rhyme groups and then into homophone groups.
Middle Chinese had a structure much like many modern varieties, with largely monosyllabic words, little or no derivational morphology, four tone-classes (though three phonemic tones), and a syllable structure consisting of initial consonant, glide, main vowel and final consonant, with a large number of initial consonants and a fairly small number of final consonants.
The four tones of Middle Chinese were first listed by Shen Yue c. 500 AD. [67] The first three, the "even" or "level", "rising" and "departing" tones, occur in open syllables and syllables ending with nasal consonants.
The suffix *-h in Li's notation is intended to represent the Old Chinese precursor to the Middle Chinese departing tone, without specifying how it was realized. [94] The Shijing 祭 jì group has Middle Chinese reflexes in the departing tone only, including some finals that occur only in the departing tone (marked below with the suffix -H).
The voiceless stops that typify the entering tone date back to the Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the parent language of Chinese as well as the Tibeto-Burman languages.In addition, Old Chinese is commonly thought to have syllables ending in clusters /ps/, /ts/, and /ks/ [1] [2] (sometimes called the "long entering tone" while syllables ending in /p/, /t/ and /k/ are the "short entering tone").
The centre of the study of Chinese historical phonology is the Qieyun, a rime dictionary created by Lu Fayan in 601 CE as a guide to the proper reading of classic texts. The dictionary divided characters between the four tones, which were subdivided into 193 rhyme groups and then into homophone groups.