Half third tone?

[deathtrap]

In NPCR 1 workbook, it says that any third tone followed by a non-third tone results in a half-third tone.

Ex: 想租 , xiang3zu1 -> xiang changes to a half third tone followed by a first tone.

My question is, is a half third tone the same as a fourth tone since they're both descending? or are they different? or does the half-third tone mean that the third tone is said much faster?

Thanks.

[Don_Horhe]

Say a full third tone but stop halfway through, that's a half third tone. It's not like the 4th tone - it goes from 5 -> 1, while the half third tone is 2 -> 1.

[flow]

if i remember correctly, it was moira yip who proposed to view mandarin tones as being phonologically composed of two ordered tonal features per syllable, H (for high) and L (for low). according to this theory, the 1st tone is an underlying HH (all high), the 2nd tone is LH (rising), the 4th tone is HL (falling). if this model is views as acceptable, the 3rd tone can only be represented as LL (all low).

the value of this model to me is that it manages to clear the conceptual space: there is only room to represent four tones this way, and four tones is what we actually observe in mandarin. also, tonal heights as well as melodic contours are well pictured---except, it would seem, for the third tone, which is commonly represented with a 'dented' contour. i seem to recall yip's explanation here was that this is more an effect of careful presentation; she proposed to view the 3rd tone as being 'essentially low', and its contour in careful, isolated pronunciation as a result of secondary effects which also help to differentiate the 3rd tome from the other three.

now tones in isolation are very different from tones in context, and this is especially true in mandarin, where research has demonstrated that tones suffer considerably from sentence prosody, to the point of obliteration. thus, in connected speech, the first thing to fall victim to 'slur' is the contours, and the 3rd tone (which, according to the account presented, is the most complex, its underlying form being LL, its surface form being HLM (high, low, mid), MLM (mid, low, mid) or HLH (high, low, high)) suffers most. essentially, xiang.HLM + zu.HH becomes xiang.ML zu.HH first, and then deteriorates to xiang.L zu.H plain and simple.

so the important thing to realize is that the 3rd tone is 'essentially low'. it is of secondary importance to 'make the dip' on the first syllable; of primary importance is that the tonal melody of 想租 (funny example of yours, btw) ends up as low, high.

[renzhe]

Mandarin tones are considerably more complex than they seem. It's not just the tonal contour that defines tones, it's also the intensity and length which varies. So in practice there are many variations of the four tones.

I agree that it's a good guideline to think of the tones in the way flow proposed, with the third tone "essentially low". Then you have the high, rising, low and falling tone, which will get you very close to the correct pronunciation. You just need to remember to do the dipping version when in isolation or stressed.

The rest will need either complex theory or listening and practice.

The more I learn about tones, the more complex they seem.

[deathtrap]

Wow, that was a lot of information. Thanks for all that.

One more question I have is if you have a phrase like "不想租“, what happens to the tone on 不? Since the tone on 想　changes to a half third tone(downward) does 不　change to second tone?

[Shi Tong]

You're thinking of a half third as a "downward" movement, but it's not really- it's more of a flat low tone, and while I agree it's not TOTALLY flat, it's easier to think of it this way.

So when a 4th hits a 3rd, it's downward to low and flat, that way you dont have to say a kind of mix of two lowering tones.

[Shelley]

I have just come across this concept of a half third tone. I was also a bit unsure what it meant, so did some research and found this topic.

 

I find this (I have attached it) tone chart very useful as it shows the relationship between the tones and where they start and end,

 

Using this chart and what I have think I understand from what other people have said i would say the a half third tone does not fully rise to the finished position.

 

if you take the point at which the third tone crosses the fourth tone in the chart, I understood that the half third tone ended here, for want of  better way to describe it.

 

On the right hand side of the chart you can see there are 4 sections, first and second tone end in the top section, third in the second section and the fourth tone in the fourth section. Nothing occupies the third section and this is where I understood the half third tone to end.

 

it is also different from a fourth tone because of the starting point, third tone starts low and rises, where as forth tone starts high and falls.

 

From listening to the third half tone this is what it sounds like to me, but I am tone deaf musically so I find tones a real problem.

 

As someone who really struggles with tones, am I way off the mark here or have got the right idea.

 

 

 

[歐博思]

This pic from Sinosplice really helped me visualize tones better.

 

[Shelley]

Interesting, I don't understand why it shows third tone as flat or is it showing us the relative differences between the tones and not the actual tone?

 

Where does the half third tone fit in on this diagram?

[歐博思]

Relative differences.

 

#3 and 4's posts are pretty good.

[xiaokaka]

@Shelly, the tone shown in the diagram is the half-third, which is the one used most of the time. The "real" third tone is, as mentioned earlier, only used in isolation or when stressing the third tone.

[renzhe]

Yeah, but "half-third" tone really has to be falling. It starts low and dips even lower, then cuts abruptly and jumps to wherever the next tone starts.

[xiaokaka]

Yes, I agree renzhe, but John Pasden, who made the diagram, thought it was a better way for beginners to think of the third tone than the standard dipping third tone. For real beginners it might be too complicated to have two falling tones. And since the half-third starts quite low it can be easier to imagine it as a low tone.

A real life example (also from sinosplice [1]):

[1] http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2008/01/21/seeing-the-tones-of-mandarin-chinese-with-praat

Edit: Here is a link to the original post containing the diagram posted by 欧博思: http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2008/12/10/toward-better-tones-in-natural-speech

[Shelley]

Ok so from that article I get the impression that in the real world "in the wild" as he puts it, tones are not as strictly adhered to as students of Chinese are led to believe.

 

I think that the half third tone is a way of going from a falling then rising tone to other tones with out it having to be the equivalent of linguistic gymnastics.

 

It seems from the article that the half third tone is almost the norm for third tone, with the full third only being used as said before in isolation or for emphases.

 

I think this is how I will approach this for now.

[hedwards]

Shelley, you can make your own recordings and run them through Praat if you really want to know what they look like in the wild. In practice, the problem with tones being precise is that you have not just the tone of the individual syllable, but the other tones in the sentence.

This isn't really that much different from languages like English where the actual pronunciation of a syllable can and will vary greatly depending upon the other syllables nearby.