pinyin tone rule questions

[leosmith]

I know this stuff has been discussed, but I can't find it, so I'll ask again.

1. is pinyin normally written with a single tone regardless of whether tone rules change it? If so, even bu4?

2. in order to tell if tone rules affect a syllable, I have to know where the word ends/starts, right? So how do you do that? Is it just a matter of experience and context? This is off topic, but when you read characters, is it easy to confuse this issue - to think a character stands by itself instead of being part of the next word for example?

[imron]

Different people have different opinions, and it's not uncommon to see both methods used. According to pinyin.info however, tone sandhi should not be indicated and only the original tones should be used.

As far as tone rules affecting a syllable, the tone changes still apply even across words, e.g.你满意了吗？ (nǐ mǎnyì le ma) should be read ní mǎnyì le ma, which is to say that the tone changes are still in effect even across word boundaries. What's more important than word beginning/end, is pauses in the sentence, as usually the tone change doesn't carry over between a pause. Knowing how to break up a sentence and where to pause when reading is a matter a practice and experience. Doing lots of listening also helps in this regard.

[Senzhi]

I'll second that. Formally, tone-sandhi does not apply to Pinyin, only to spoken Mandarin.

Like in any language, rules are more consistent in written language than in speach ...

Modern teaching materials should reflect this. Older materials (or the informal ones) do often use tone-sandhi in Pinyin (and confuse about 99% of students of Mandarin).

[xianu]

as far as the ways some words change that are not classed as tone sandhi (yi1/yi4/yi2 for one, and bu4/bu2 for no/not), changes are usually indicated in the pinyin, at least as far as textbooks go. There is a rule for these. Correct me if I am wrong, or have left out something:

for yi1 一, if the word following it is a 4th tone, the yi1 generally becomes a yi2 (一个yi2ge4), if the word following is a 2nd tone, the yi1 becomes 4th (一条yi4tiao2)

for bu4 不, if the word following it is a 4th tone, it becomes a 2nd bu2 (不是bu2shi4)

for both cases, the pinyin is written as it is spoken. For practical (communicative) purposes, as long as the pauses between words/phrases and the pronunciation are correct, it doesn't really matter. People generally understand you in context.

[roddy]

See also here. Seems the rules say no, but textbooks will often indicate the changes - in my experience they'll specify what they're going to do at the start and sometimes draw attention to changes with bold or italic print.