Mandarin tones' correspondence with Shanghainese's

[taibeihong]

In general,it would seem to me that there is almost a 1-1 correspondence between mandarin's 1st tone and shanghainese's high tone:

canguan = tséukueu

xihuan = huéushi

san = sé

In a few cases, it's not a shanghainese high tone, but a high tone rusheng:

ba = pach

I thought that was great because that simplified my memorising of which words were high tone and which ones were regular tone in Shanghainese, I simply figured "if that's first tone in Mandarin, chances are it's high tone in Shanghainese, with a smaller chance of being rusheng". BUT...

On my tapes, I could swear the speaker says "kéuci" (to see, look) as HL instead of "keuci" as LH, as I would expect from "kan" being fourth tone, not first, in Mandarin. And now that I'm learning more vocab, I think I've been surprised once or twice more with unexpected tones (especially sequences which I guessed would be HL but end up sounding LH).

So the question is: do words in mandarin's 2nd, 3rd and 4th tones also correspond (sometimes, rarely, almost never) to shanghainese's high tone? Or is there some pitch pattern I'm unaware of? Or maybe the pitches used in my tapes are outdated (as they use, for example, kueu instead of keu, or donvaeyueu instead of donvaeyu)?

[Claw]

This link gives a good description on the evolution of tones in various dialects. Essentially Middle Chinese had 8 tones (4 main categories -- even 平, rising 上, departing 去, and entering 入 -- each divided into 2 subcategories -- yin 陰/high and yang 陽/low).

Because of the reduction of tones in Mandarin, many of these tone categories have merged. For instance, the entering category has disappeared in Mandarin and the tones of these words have unpredictably been distributed across the other four tones. Meanwhile, the rising category has disappeared from Wu/Shanghaiese. So perhaps this is what you're seeing when the tones don't seem to have any obvious correspondence.

[ala]

看 can be 53 (to guard, eg 看门) or 34 (to look).

However 看见 should be kheuci (but can be said as khéuci as well), and the usage today is mostly 看到 kheuto. (Complements in Shanghainese are being reduced to the bare minimum in terms of descriptiveness).

General rules:

Mandarin tone 1 is always the high pitched 53 voiceless tone in Shanghainese, EXCEPT Rusheng (which will all go to high 5).

三、山、高、开

Mandarin tone 2 is always voiced in Shanghainese.

台、达、杂、白、谈、从, etc

Mandarin tone 3 is almost always the low-medium 34 voiceless tone in Shanghainese, EXCEPT Rusheng (which will all go to high 5)

反、喊、岛、少、好、苦、素、主、etc

Mandarin tone 4 is the most messy. It is either voiced in Shanghainese (大、市) or the low-medium 34 voiceless tone (见、看) or Rusheng.

Basically, if you know Mandarin and Japanese (which has the 阴/阳 voiced/voiceless distinction and 入 Rusheng), you can get almost all of the Shanghainese tones in 10 minutes. Shanghainese has no 上, and all voiced characters (上阳、去阳、平阳) are combined into one Voiced group.

The tone categories in Shanghainese were combined in whole, while in Mandarin the Rusheng was scattered somewhat randomly. Both are very simplified, but they are simplified in very different ways. Mandarin has retained 上、平、去 but lost 阴/阳 distinction (except for 平) and Rusheng, Shanghainese has retained 阴/阳 distinction (via voicing) and 入, but lost 上、去 distinction and all distinction inside the 阳 (voiced) group. So in terms of actual contour distinction, Shanghainese is the most simplified major Chinese dialect. If Shanghainese didn't have 阴平 (the high falling tone), it would be toneless; there is a trend towards losing that tone too (Shanghai's Chongming island has already lost it). Many Shanghainese youths (under 25) pronounce the two voiceless tones quite randomly already (usually around pitch 44)

[Altair]

Mandarin tone 4 is the most messy. It is either voiced in Shanghainese (大、市、成) or the low-medium 34 voiceless tone (见、看) or Rusheng.

Basically, if you know Mandarin and Japanese (which has the 阴/阳 voiced/voiceless distinction and 入 Rusheng), you can get almost all of the Shanghainese tones in 10 minutes. Shanghainese has no 上, and all voiced characters (上阳、去阳、平阳) are combined into one Voiced group.

If my head were not spinning at the moment, I think I could figure this out, but could you explain how Japanese helps with all of this? Will Japanese help disambiguate all of the Mandarin tone 4 cases? For instance, how can I guess the tone of 四 using Mandarin (si4) and Japanese "shi"?

I guess I can predict from Japanese that 四 is not rusheng, but not from Mandarin. Can I rely on Japanese to preduct voicing? Also, I guess one could use Cantonese, as well. In Cantonese, I think that "sei" would be described as 阴去. Both of these should yield Shanghainese 四 (sy) with a mid-rising tone? Do I have it right?

[ala]

I guess I can predict from Japanese that 四 is not rusheng, but not from Mandarin. Can I rely on Japanese to preduct voicing?

Yes, you can predict voicing with Japanese (usually kan-on, go-on; but not sou-on). shi is not voiced, and neither is the Shanghainese, so it's tone 34 in Shanghainese. If you know Cantonese, then you can predict all the tones and voicing (as long as you know what merges with what in Shanghainese). I brought up Japanese because it's more accessible, voiced/voiceless is more distinct than varying pitch levels in Cantonese, and you don't need to deal with the traditional nomenclature (阴去, etc).