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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 ...
Yuen Ren Chao considered the changed tone 2 to be identical to tone 1, and Cao Wen treated it as tone 1 (before tones 1 or 4) or tone 4 (before tones 2 or 3). [ 21 ] [ 22 ] Both views are generalizations; the exact pitch contour of the changed tone 2 varies between mid-level ˧ in isolated words or at a slower speaking rate, and slightly ...
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.
A tone split occurs as a result of the loss of the voicing distinction in initial consonants. The split tones then merge back together except for Middle Chinese tone 1; hence Middle Chinese tones 1,2,3 become Mandarin tones 1,2,3,4. (Some syllables with original Mandarin tone 3 move to tone 4; see below.)
In tonal languages, tone names are the names given to the tones these languages use. Pitch contours of the four Mandarin tones In contemporary standard Chinese (Mandarin), the tones are numbered from 1 to 4.
Each of the 43 tables in the Yunjing is first divided into four large rows that correspond to the four tones of Middle Chinese: the level tone (Chinese: 平聲; pinyin: píngshēng), the rising tone (Chinese: 上聲; pinyin: shǎngshēng), the departing tone (Chinese: 去聲; pinyin: qùshēng), and the entering tone (Chinese: 入聲; pinyin: rùshēng). [1]
A rime table or rhyme table (simplified Chinese: 韵图; traditional Chinese: 韻圖; pinyin: yùntú; Wade–Giles: yün-t'u) is a Chinese phonological model, tabulating the syllables of the series of rime dictionaries beginning with the Qieyun (601) by their onsets, rhyme groups, tones and other properties.