tone of 叉 in the splits

[L-F-J]

which tone does 叉 take in 劈叉, 横叉, and 竖叉? i've heard it sound like 4th tone, but i didnt think 叉 ever has the 4th tone. it can have 1st, 2nd, or 3rd. i would guess 3rd in this case?

can someone provide the proper tone marks for the three words? thanks!

[monto]

May be a little help:

According "New Age Chinese-English Dictionary" by The Commercial Press,

叉 （cha1):

1) fork (noun); 2) fork (verb) 3) ' X ' mark

叉 （cha2):

(dialect) block, jam (verb)

叉 （cha3):

to part (legs) to form a fork shape

叉 （cha4):

see "劈叉" (pi3 cha4)

and 劈叉:(sports) do the splits.

From above, we know 叉 is 4th tone in 劈叉, and I think also 4th in 横叉 and 竖叉 if they mean specific splits with the same concept as 劈叉.

[L-F-J]

yes, it refers to the front split and side split.

perhaps i wasnt looking in the right dictionaries. thank you!

[ganyuehan]

Maybe I'm going off on another of my irrelevant tangents, but I often hear doing the splits said as 劈腿(many girls at the cram school I work at go to dance class).

[L-F-J]

well, in some shaolin gongfu forms there is a move called 劈腿 where you just kick your leg straight in the air, vertically. which can also be a dance/cheerleading move i guess.

i've only heard the splits as 劈叉. then more specifically side and front splits as 横叉 and 竖叉.

[ganyuehan]

Perhaps we're entering another area in which Taiwan differs from China, or parts of China anyway. Students at my cram school will say 劈腿 and then even demonstrate the painful looking position. A native speaker I know who speaks fairly standard Mandarin, (not really scary Taiwanese Mandarin) said she has never used or heard 劈叉. But anyways, it looks like people in different areas say it in different ways.

Here are a couple of links just to show I haven't completely lost my mind:

http://lzxm160.blogchina.com/5144089.html

http://www.whnews.cn/news/2006-09/27/content_993740.htm

劈腿 seems to have an additional meaning that's sexual, but that's not the direction I'm going in here.