UNSTRESSED WORDS

Many years ago, I took an intro to Mandarin course.   Our instructor, a
native speaker of Mandarin, identified a "fifth" tone, neutral tone, used in
unstressed syllables.

Unstressed words included some particles and classifiers.

Q:    Under what circumstances are syllables in Mandarin unstressed?


In my tone language, I think I'm going to confine the unstressed syllables
to certain one-syllable conjunctions and particles, and to some prefixes.

In most words, stress will be equal on all syllables so that the tones can
be heard equally.

Q:    Is this scheme at all natural?   Is there some way to make it easier
to pronounce?

Thanks,

Jim