Re: tonal languages

Florian writes:

>so here are the basic tones of shanghainese
>1st : long 53
>2nd : long 34
>3rd : long 13
>4th : short 55
>5th : short 22
I'm with you here.

>the entering word of a compound can get a final glotal stop(as
>explained later) noted "?"
Only tones 4 and 5 (yang qu and yang ru, respectively) can have a
final glottal stop.

>the initials of the first tone (53) and 2nd (34) are voiceless sounds
Yep.

>the initials of the 3rd tone (13) are all voiced sound exept nasals
>sounds and the lateral "l".
See my last post on this.

>The tone will change when two or more words are pronouced in series.
>The tone change in serial pronounciation can be divided in two
>groups. the extensively used form, and the infrequently used form.
Okay, you're beginning to lose me here......

>The characteristics of the exensively used form are: in a serialy
>read word group, the first word is generaly not prounouced in
>original tone, but in a fixed tone. for example: the tone 53 is
>transformed into 44, 34 into 44, 13 into 33,
13 into 22, using your notation, no?

>55 into 44 and 22 into 11. the tone change of the first word affects
>the tone of the following words which also lose original tone, in
>despite of rising and falling tone. the fixed form of the tone
>change is formed by combining the first word with the following
>words. according to the various tones of the first word, the tones
>for two-word group, three-word group, .., five word group tend to be
>changed. general rule are shown in the following table:
>
>1sr word'stone | two words |   3       |  4           | 5
>                |           |           |              |
>53             |  55 21    | 55 33 21  | 55 33 33 21  | 55 33 33 33 21
>                |           |           |              |
>34             |  33 44    | 33 55 21  | 33 55 33 21  | 33 55 33 33 21
>                |           |           |              |
>13             |  22 44    | 22 55 21  | 22 55 33 21  | 22 55 33 33 21
>                |           |           |              |
>55             |  33? 44   | 33 55 21  | 33? 55 33 21 | 33? 55 33 33 21
>                |           |           |              |
>22             |  11? 23   | 11? 22 33 | 11? 22 22 23 | 22? 55 33 33 21
>                                          22? 55 33 21
>
>example: "shanghai" is read in series and zan13 he34 becomes : zan22he44
>"shanghai dialect" zan13 he34 he13 ho13 becomes zan22he55he33ho21
Ah, I had to read this several times but I now get it and concur. I
would only add that Shanghainese has no /n/ vs. /N/ distinction the
way Mandarin does so "zang22he44" might be more intuitive for the
uninitiated. Four syllable units can break into a 2+2  or 3+1
syllable sandhi pattern; five into a 3+2 or 2+3 sandhi pattern,
depending on the morphemes involved.

>the infrequently used form of serial change only suits specified
>word groups. the usage is very limited.
Yeah, this is where I get lost. Could you give a couple of examples to clarify?

>ok, here you are. above is roughtly an cut from my book, and since i
>haven't started learning, i guess that i wont be able to explain
>much more that what i just wrote. i just wanted to show you this
>system, cause i think it is shows that natlangs are quite good at
>doing complicated things when they want. Does anyone has a conlang
>(or natlang) with tonal rules as twisted as this?
As H.S. pointed out, Hokkien makes this look like a day at the beach.
Here are the basics:

Tones 1 (44) and 5 (24) become tone 7 (33)
Tone 2 (52) becomes tone 1 (44)
Tone 3 (21) and tone 4 (32glottal stop) become tone 2 (52no glottal stop)
Tone 7 (33) and tone 8 (43glottal stop) become tone 3 (31no glottal stop)
Tone 4 (32clipped) becomes tone 8 (43clipped)
Tone 8 (43clipped) becomes tone 4 (32clipped)

You sandhi virtually *every*thing except the last syllable in nouns
and the last syllable of phrases. Natch, there are exceptions. "Ki3",
"to go", should morph into "ki2", but this is usually realized as
"ki1" ("ki1si2" = "drop dead"). "Lai5", "to come", and "beh4", "to
want", operate similarly. Too, these sandhi rules may vary in
different varieties of Hokkien (like I think in Tainan tone 5 (24)
becomes tone 3 (21), not 7 (33), or something like that). H.S.'s
Hokkien may look considerably different.
______________________________

In a different post, Florian wrote:

>>  the initials of the first tone (53) and 2nd (34) are voiceless sounds
>>  the initials of the 3rd tone (13) are all voiced sound exept nasals
>>  sounds and the lateral "l".
To which H.S. replied:

>Interesting. Hokkien probably also has similar constraints, but I can't
>tell 'cos it's completely unconcious for me. :-)
Near as I can tell at a cursory glance, voiced stops hang out
*almost* exclusively in yang territory. But since we said there's no
distinction between yang shang (the famed non-existent tone 6) and
yin shang (tone 2), there are also yin shang syllables. Tone 4 (yin
ru), a "clipped" tone, also seems to be an option, but there may be
factors involving whether it ends in a glottal stop or a good, God's
honest, Mom's apple pie stop. Perhaps I'll delve more deeply when I
get home.

Kou

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