Pronounciation of 的 in songs.

[Entropy_Rising]

Is it just me or is this almost always pronounced "di" in songs? If that's correct and I'm not going mad, anybody know why this is the case?

[liuzhou]

I don't know about songs, but in the local dialect (桂柳话 Guilin - Liuzhou） it is usually pronounced 'di'. So, 好的 ends up sounding like "howdy" from some cowboy movie!

I think it's a Cantonese influence (but I could be wrong.)

[davidj]

One theory might be that it is always di /ti/, but the destressing associated with neutral tone makes the vowel neutral /tə/. This happens a lot in English, e.g. stressed "the" is /ði:/, but unstressed "the" is /ðə/

[Lu]

Definitely not in all songs. I know Deng Lijun does it, I always assumed it's the over-correct or somewhat old-fashioned pronouciation. I also spotted it in the Judge Dee novels (take place in the Tang, written in the first half of the 20th century). I don't think I've ever heard someone pronounce it di in real life.

[FadedStardust]

I don't think I've ever heard someone pronounce it di in real life.

You mean you've never heard the word 目的 (mu4di4) which retains the more classical di pronunciation?

In all seriousness though, as a particle, I actually have heard it pronounced as di by people in Taiwan - but only when they're trying to sound a little exaggerated.

I've also heard it in songs from both Taiwanese and mainland singers; in fact I remember reading somewhere (don't remember quite where, sorry) that it should ALWAYS be pronounced di in songs, and the only reason most people don't is because they're unaware of this rule... But this might not be true, as I said, I don't remember where I heard this so take it with a grain of salt.....

But I guess my main point is, it used to always be di, then it changed (mostly, again, see the word 目的 for an exception), but you'll still hear both di and de in songs; so don't go crazy trying to figure out which one is "correct" because they both are

[Entropy_Rising]

I'm gathering from people's responses then that "di" is a classical pronunciation that occasionally is retained by singers for stylistic reasons. I suppose this meets my curiosity.

When I was studying in Nanjing locals also tended to pronounce it as "di" after "hao," so I, too, experienced the howdy effect. It's great.

[mythia]

In songs yes, you can sing "di" on most occasions, it just is.

[jinhr]

In Internet slang, many people replace “的”(de) with “滴”(di1) on purpose. This is because in many local dialects, “的” is pronounced di1. For example:

我私下里是很佩服楼主滴！

[L-F-J]

my observation has been that this is carried over from traditional chinese opera,

words such as 的 and 了 which are soft and quiet are changed to "di" and "liao" to have a louder and more musical sound. it especially changes the effect when singing chinese opera.

in modern songs, its not always, but quite often that you'll hear this. its likely just the style of the singer.

i've heard the same song sung by different singers where 的 was pronounced "de" by one, and "di" by another.

but for traditional chinese opera, the style of singing seems to require the "di" and "liao" pronunciation for the pitch to be high enough.

[Hofmann]

It's the pronunciation of 的 before it became unstressed.

康熙字典 says:

的，

1. （丁歷切）明也，白也，遠也，明見也，實也，射之準臬也　

2. 蓮子也

3. 婦人點飾額也（音灼）　　

4. 白額馬也（又作馰）

[trevelyan]

Oddly enough, we just covered this here. It's a variant pronunciation common in opera and traditional folk music. Comments are all right on - it's a classical pronunciation that carried over into opera and folk music, and is losing ground in contemporary pop.