Re: Tone question

--- 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

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