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The interpretation of the "divisions" is more controversial. ... The four tones of Middle Chinese were first listed by Shen Yue c. 500 AD. [67]
"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
A painting of a gentry scholar with two courtesans, by Tang Yin, c. 1500. The four occupations (simplified Chinese: 士农工商; traditional Chinese: 士農工商; pinyin: Shì nóng gōng shāng), or "four categories of the people" (Chinese: 四民; pinyin: sì mín), [1] [2] was an occupation classification used in ancient China by either Confucian or Legalist scholars as far back as the ...
Karlgren derived the four divisions of Middle Chinese finals from the palatal medial and a range of Old Chinese vowels. More recent reconstructions derive division II from an Old Chinese medial *r (given as *l in the early work of Yakhontov and Pulleyblank).
Each table had 16 rows, with a group of four rows for each of the four tones of the Qieyun. The above chart covers four parallel Guangyun rhyme groups, the level-toned 東 dōng, the rising-toned 董 dǒng, the departing-toned 送 sòng, and the entering-toned 屋 wū (which in Middle Chinese ended in -k, the entering tone counterpart of -ng).
The remaining finals were spread across the second, third and fourth rows, and were later called division III finals. [3] [4] The division III finals can be further subdivided on the basis of their distribution: Independent or pure division III finals occur only the third row of the rime tables, and occur only with labial, velar or laryngeal ...
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.
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]