Tone Shift Rules

[Haley]

A) Are the tone shift rules in the link below correct? I'm confused because on some learning sites I've heard phrases spoken without applying the tone shift rules.

http://www.chinese-outpost.com/language/pronunciation/tone-shifts-in-mandarin-chinese.asp

B) Are there any other tone shift rules that I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance for our help.

[Jose]

Yes, the information in that website is basically right.

The other tone shift you need to be aware of is the one that affects the numeral 一 , which is yī when pronounced on its own, but when followed by a measure word becomes yí before a fourth tone and yì before the other tones. So, 一本书 is pronounced yìběn shū and 一辆汽车 is yíliàng qìchē. Note that the measure word 个 is usually pronounced with a light tone, but the original stressed reading is gè, which explains why 一 is also read as yí in front of it: 一个人 yíge rén.

I think for some speakers the numerals 七 and 八 undergo the same changes as 一, but it doen't seem to be a universal rule, so I suppose we learners can ignore it. I always try to say 八个人 as bāge rén. I wonder if it would sound better as báge rén.

[skylee]

I wonder if it would sound better as báge rén.

It sounds strange.

[againstwind]

on the sandhi of 不 and 一:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/showpost.php?p=84510&postcount=5

and another on the sandhi of 3rd tone:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/showpost.php?p=84510&postcount=5

[Toeng-tsoi]

I was wondering..

I've heard that with the sandhi of the 3rd tone you only have to apply it when speaking, when you write, you just write the original pinyin, but when speaking, you have to pronounce it different as those rules say, is this right? So you just write "nǐ hǎo", but pronounce "ní hǎo".

If so, is it the same with "yī" and "bù"? Do you just write the original tone, and only notice the difference when speaking?

Thanks

-Lorenzo

[skylee]

I've heard that with the sandhi of the 3rd tone you only have to apply it when speaking' date=' when you write, you just write the original pinyin, but when speaking, you have to pronounce it different as those rules say, is this right? So you just write "nǐ hǎo", but pronounce "ní hǎo".

If so, is it the same with "yī" and "bù"? [/quote']

Yes that's right. Yes it is the same with 一 and 不.

[Toeng-tsoi]

Oki, thanks for confirming that for me

[shikang]

In our chinese class (and in our books) we write pinyin of the bu and yi with the tone that is actually spoken, but with the third tone changes we don't write as second tone etc.

[HashiriKata]

we write pinyin of the bu and yi with the tone that is actually spoken, but with the third tone changes we don't write as second tone etc.

This is exactly how it should be done because the change of tones for bu and yi is fixed whereas the change of tone for a string of third tone syllables depends also on the speaker and how s/he speaks.

[Toeng-tsoi]

Ouch, gotto love the conflicting theorie's lol..

Personally I've seen both done very much, so that's why I was doubting.

I see people leaving the original and people writing the changed tones.

Any more who want to give their opinion on this or who know 100 % sure what the basic rule is?

[roddy]

Just doing a quick survey of what I have handy . . .

Dictionary: Does not show tone changes.

Textbook 1: Shows changes for yi and bu, not for third tones

Textbook 2 Ditto

HSK vocab listing: Shows changes, but puts that syllable in italics

Pronunciation course: Ditto, but bold instead of italics.

A quick look around didn't turn up anything authoritative in Chinese. Pinyin.info has

Indication of Tones:

1. Only the original tones are indicated; tone sandhi is not indicated.

from this book. Materials for CSL learners frequently ignore that though, presumably on the basis of making our lives easier. Would be interesting (relative to the subject matter ) to see how Chinese elementary school textbooks do it.

[HashiriKata]

Ouch, gotto love the conflicting theorie's lol..

Personally I've seen both done very much, so that's why I was doubting.

I can't see anything conflicting from what has been said so far, just ordinary human variations...(Obviously, some input from our brain is required to see the logics behind the variations. )

Yes, customarily dictionaries present tone sandhi in the abstract (=only rules, no changes shown) and textbooks as it happens. Again, this should be so since dictionaries deal only with items in the abstract whereas textbooks give you sentences in connected speech.

[shibo77]

Chinese elementary school textbooks don't show them, one only learn about tone changes if one majors in linguistics. For the elementary school students, the pinyin is mostly there for reference, they only look at the characters' pinyin when they have difficulty pronouncing that character.

-Shibo

[Toeng-tsoi]

hmm k, so I guess for 一 and 不 it's more what your own preference is?

Anyways, I think I'll stick to writing down the original hehe, works fine for me, the rules aren't hard anyways and become normal after a while like everything else

[Altair]

Pinyin is still not yet used as a full script, but rather as a system of transliteration. Because of this difference, the value of usage as a prescriptive standard is somewhat limited.

As reported above, the official rules are that changed tones are not shown. This is because the tone markings were never designed or intended to be used as descriptions of actual speech. They were designed to show the citation forms of the characters or the words they represent.

The concept of "citation forms" is not obvious in English or many other languages, but is still important in some limited circumstances, for example, where a word can take many forms when used in connected speech. In English, a citation form would be used between the single quotes in the sentence: "How do you say 'xxxx' in Chinese?" In Chinese, a citation form would be used between the single quotes in the equivalent sentence: "'xxx' 用英文怎么说?"

Notice that the concept of citation forms means that you must strip out the tone variation in characters like 一, 不, 七, and 八 and also in changed third tones. On the other hand, you must show tone "changes" in characters which inherently have more than one pronunciation depending on meaning, rather than phonetic environment (破音字 or 多音字), such as: 背 (bèi or bēi) and 数 (shù, shǔ, shuò).

I think the only exception to using the citation form as the standard for the tone marking are characters that in context must be pronounced with a neutral tone in the normal speach of the Beijing region. Such characters are cited with their original tones, unless they are particles. I think particles are usually cited in the first tone. Putting tone markings on particles would simply be confusing, since particles never receive stress in speech and tones are only associated with stressed syllables. Showing the neutral tones in other words, despite their original tones, allows the expression of lexical differences in words such as 精神 (jīngshén and jīngshen) and 运气 (yùnqi and yùnqì).

Again, since pinyin remains more of a learner's tool, then a full-fledged script, dictionaries and grammar books are free too vary the rules according to what they think best. An analogous situation for Americans would be how English dictionaries indicate word pronunciations. Despite the existence of broad international agreement on phonetic scripts (e.g., the IPA), most Americans have little exposure to or interest in these systems. American dictionaries routinely make up their own systems and introduce variations to the IPA as they see fit.

[Gharial]

Personally I think that dictionaries (certainly, any even remotely aimed at non-native learners of Chinese) should mark tone changes in at least the main entries for the characters concerned, so I was pleased to see that the following dictionaries do with regard to 不 and 一:

-the Yuan & Church beginner-level E-C/C-E from Oxford (goes by various titles)

-the Langenscheidt/Berlitz/Insight E-C/C-E

-Fred Fangyu Wang's old C-E (Dover Publications)

I mean, in a dictionary, it's not like the citation form can't be easily found nearby (at the head-entry character itself, and among those compounds and phrases in the entry that don't involve tone changes).

Courses meanwhile, as others have said or suggested, will benefit from somehow highlighting or noting the fact that a tone has been changed in the text, but there is usually a glossary in the back of the coursebook with enough entries in it to, like any dictionary, show the citation form near enough to any forms with tone changes.

For what it's worth, the courses and other resources that I've noticed mark tone changes are:

-the original Practical Chinese Reader

-the original and newer versions of Colloquial Chinese (Routledge)

-Chinese in Three Months (Hugo)

-Scurfield's Teach Yourself Chinese

-Yong Ho's Chinese-English Frequency Dictionary (Hippocrene)

-Hu & Lee's Basic Chinese Vocabulary (Passport Books)

The Routledge grammars by Yip & Rimmington don't appear to mark any tone changes.

None of the above books by the way appears to mark changes to series of third tones, but that one isn't too difficult to remember (and it would be difficult anyhow to say a succession of syllables in their original third tones even if one had forgotten the "rule"!), and like HashiriKata says, this one depends more on the individual speaker ultimately.