is the neutral tone official?

[eric]

I know many text books mention it and use it, but I still can't tell if it's an official tone. I was thinking that if it's not official, maybe it has evolved to the point where it should be official? (out of common use)

All I know is that I could not imagine the language without it.

[889]

In speech, qingsheng on the second character differentiates such words as 东西 (east and west) from 东西 (thing) and 兄弟 (brothers) from 兄弟 (little brother). Dictionaries show this by omitting a tone mark on the pinyin of the light-toned character when indicating the "official" pronunciation of these words. If you don't use qingsheng and say dong1xi1 when you mean dong1xi, then you're not speaking proper Chinese. Thus qingsheng isn't just official, it's necessary.

Questions about qingsheng typically arise because Beijinghua, for example, uses qingsheng a lot more than standard putonghua; if you want to know what's "official" you really can't rely on native speakers and have to check a dictionary to learn whether it's xie4xie4 or xie4xie.

[shibo77]

Many people asked this question, but as far as I know, there are 5 tones in Chinese.

1 阴平 Yin1 Ping2 (High Pitch Tone) marked by a macron ō

2 阳平 Yang2 Ping2 (Rising Pitch Tone) marked by an accute ó

3 上声 Shang4 Sheng1 (Lower Rising Pitch Tone) marked by a caron ŏ

4 去声 Qu4 Sheng1 (Falling Pitch Tone) marked by a grave ò

5 轻声 Qing1 Sheng1/零声 Ling2 Sheng1 (Pitchless Tone, Neutral Tone) not marked o

What is confusing to many people is the difference between pitch and tone. There are 4 pitches, but 5 tones. The neutral tone is without a pitch. The pronounciation of the 5th tone is relative to the previous word. 妈妈 (媽媽) ma1 ma5 (mother), the ma5 is pitchless, relative to the previous 1st tone ma1. 走了 zou3 le5 (went), the le5 is pitchless, relative to the 3rd tone zou3. 了le4 in isolation would be in the 4th tone. The 5th tone must exist in relation with another non-5th tone character.

Tones experience tonal shifts, creating a semi-tone called the "Partial Third Tone" or "Lowering Pitch Tone". This happens when a 3rd tone precedes any other tones (1,2,4,5).

你吃饭. Ni3 + chi1 + fan4. >>>

你吃饭. Ni(partial 3) chi1 fan4.

When pronouncing a partial third tone, do exactly what the name says, "lowering pitch". A normal 3rd tone lowers and then rises with twice the intensity. A partial 3rd tone simply lowers, and jumps onto the next character. This habit was formed when people tried to speak fastly.

I hope this helped.

- Shibo

[Altair]

There has been some discusson about tones and pitches on other threads, but one thing you said caught my attention. What is said to be the difference between the 轻声 qing1 sheng1 and the 零声 ling2 sheng1? If neither had pitch during the Song Dynasty, what distinguished them?

By the way, what was presumed to be the dialect used in the Song court? Is it thought to be an ancestor of modern Mandarin?

[shibo77]

Sorry, I corrected my mistake. the two tones that died out from the Song dynasty to Yuan dynasty were called:

1 入声 Ru4 Sheng1 (Entering Pitch Tone, Quick-Falling Pitch Tone)

2 平声 Ping2 Sheng1 (Level Pitch Tone, Flat Pitch Tone)

Ancestor, I don't know how I should reply to this, but Chinese is a continuous language. Ever since the Qin/Han dynasties, Chinese has remained relatively static, even the pronounciation is relatively static when you compare it to changes in the Indo-European family. In this way, Ancient Chinese would obviously be an ancestor to modern Mandarin. If we resurrect Cicero, he would probably not understand French; But if we resurrect 赢政Ying Zheng, he would probably understand quite a bit of spoken Mandarin. I love resurrections!

But I guess I understand this ancestor thing, well first of all, Mandarin is a Portuguese term for 满大人, a Manchu bureaucrat.... 官话 Bureaucratic Speech .... 满族Manchu.... 清Qing dynasty.... Portuguese Jesuits....

This term is not used in China, and until I talked to foreigners, I had not idea what Mandarin meant. It is misleading. There is only the Bureaucratic Speech, or simply Standard Chinese. That is the Chinese used at court, in a unified China. They are marked by transition periods from each dynasty or each change of capital. The most recent change of capital and transition period would be the transition to Beijing by the Mongols. Yuan, Ming Qing, early 13th century to the end of the 19th century. Beijing dialect had a great influence on Bureaucratic Speech. And the influence is reciprocal, probably Bureaucratic Speech had more influence on the local Beijing dialect. Nowadays, the two are interchangeable, they are essentially the same. There were many such transitions in Chinese history, when Tang collapsed, when Song changed capitals. But the most significant one on "Mandarin" would be 221 BCE, when China was first unified. That was when Guanhua -Bureaucratic Speech were first developed. That is the origin of "Mandarin" -Bureaucratic Speech. I think that I posted a similar reply on another thread...

I hope this helped!

- Shibo