Re: Mandarin demonstratives (Re: Charyan novel! (was: Re: [CONLANG] I'm back!))

On 9 Jan 02, at 16:29, H. S. Teoh wrote:

> I was referring to the fact that, although I know and use the tones
> without problems, I have some trouble *remembering* which tone numbers
> correspond with which tone. IMNSHO they should have more logical names for
> tones than meaningless numbers, but that's just me...
Well, some people use tone contour numbers -- I've seen this especially
for Cantonese on sci.lang. So you see things such as 55 (high level) or
21 (low falling) or 35 (mid rising) and so on. Basically two numbers on
a scale of 1-5 (1=low, 5=high) with the first number saying where the
tone starts and the second where it ends. Clipped tones (e.g. Cantonese
rusheng) often only get one number: 1 3 5 in Cantonese.

Some people also use a notation such as -s or +r which is based on "yin
/ yang" + "shang / ping / ru / qu", but that nomenclature -- while
traditional Chinese -- seems to me to be nearly as arbitrary as tone
numbers. (For example, yin / yang does not correspond to high/low or
level/changing as some dialects do one thing and some do another.)

Then there's the complication of tone sandhi in some dialects -- where
the basic tone of a syllable changes depending on the tone of the
following and/or preceding syllable. Some notate only the basic tone,
some the sandhi'ed tone (which may be like another basic tone or may be
something that only occurs in sandhi), and some both.

Cheers,
Philip, who sucks at remembering Chinese tones
--
Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>