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Re: Tone question

From:Erika <erika0100@...>
Date:Friday, February 3, 2006, 1:11
--- Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:

> From what I have read and also heard myself, > Mandarin does have > prosody. I think it may be used e.g. to mark a > question without a > question marker (ma) or to mark surprise (ba), etc., > just like in > English. Usually, prosody accompanies a sentence > even when such > explicit markers. >
That's interesting... I haven't heard of anything like that, because questions that don't use "ma" use the __ bu__ form (such as shi bushi) to ask a question. Also, ba usually is a polite imperative, like "let's go to the store." "Le" would mark surprise because it signifies a change of situation. Of course, I'm no expert! -- Erika __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com