The "entering" tone : why so called ?

[Phil]

It is now over a year since I first encountered the phrase "the entering tone" (入声 / 入聲 / rùshēng), and despite reading and re-reading both my texts and the online references, I still do not understand why it is so called ! There are two quite distinct aspects to the question :

1. Why "entering" (i.e., what does "entering" mean in this context) ?
   
2. Why "tone", when it appears to refer to a syllable that ends in a stop consonant or a glottal stop and has nothing to do with the "tone" or "pitch contour" of that syllable per se ("tone", that is, as normally understood when discussing MSC) ?
   

I am sure that this is well-understood amongst and by those who have some formal training in the study of Old/Ancient/Classical Chinese, but to someone just starting out on that fascinating journey of intellectual discovery, this is a very puzzling aspect of the literature ... !

[Altair]

I also have no formal training, but here is what I have assumed.

1. Each of the names of the four tones were chosen because they were themselves examples of the tones they named. I think that 入 was once pronounced with a final unreleased "p" sound and therefore qualified as an example of the entering tone.

2. All entering tone syllables are pronounced with a "checked" quality, i.e., the airstream is abruptly halted. This can sound like you have started to say something, but have stopped. You could refer to this as having "entered" the syllable.

3. I don't think modern linguistics has a simple definition of tone. Some languages seem to focus on pitch contours, others on simple pitch, others on relative pitch, others on pitch accents, and still others on phonation qualities that incidentally affect pitch. I think the ancient Chinese focused only on components of rhyme and that checked syllables formed a distinct rhyme class independent of whatever pitch or pitches they were pronounced with.

4. Most scholars believe tone in Chinese developed as compensation for consonants and other phonetic characteristics that were dropped, such as initial voicing, final sibilants, glottal pronunciations, etc. Thinking of checked syllables as just another category may not seem so strange in contrast. I think some modern Chinese dialects (Shanghainese?, Nanjing Mandarin?) have even leveled the pronunciation of all entering tone syllables, replacing the final consonant with a glottal stop and using a relatively neutral pitch or no contrasting pitch at all.

[Hofmann]

It seems to me that the names of the four tones describe their motion (as 平上去入 are all verbs). In 入's case, I think it has something to do with the unreleased quality of the plosives at the end, and this unreleased quality feels like the voice is "kept inside." When people refer to the entering tone, they're probably talking about Middle Chinese entering tones, which are syllables that end in unreleased /p/, /t/, or /k/. Middle Chinese entering tones are retained in some modern languages. Cantonese, for example, retains them almost exactly, only changing some final /p/ to /t/, and perhaps one case of /p/ to /m/ (眨).

Why tone? Because 入聲 is called a 聲, along with the others 平上去, which are real linguistic tones. Conveniently, it seems that either all 入聲 were the same (real) tone or a change in tone didn't make a phonemic difference. Therefore, 入聲 acted like just another tone.

There also seemed to be relationships between some syllables that end in homorganic nasals and unreleased plosives, such as the pairs 廣 and 擴; 盲, 陌; 匆, 促; etc. In Middle Chinese, to say the same "syllable" except changing the "tone" would be like saying 東董涷[u+22F74].

[Guest realmayo]

Interesting answers -- and question: I'd wondered about this myself for ages....

[Don_Horhe]

"Entering tone", although a literal translation of 入声, is not the best possible English rendering of said tonal category. Altair is right in saying that it is actually a "checked" tone, since it is relatively shorter than other tones and is abruptly ended.

http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=120192563

阴者，女人声也，音轻，调高，为清音；

阳者，男人声也，音重，调低，为浊音。

平者，调无高低之变化也；

上者，若上升也，调渐高；

去者，若远去也，调渐低；

入者，促而止也。

I read somewhere, can't remember where, though, that the codas of 入声 syllables 'p' (bilabial), 't' (alveolar) and 'k' (velar) were phonemically 'm' (bilabial), 'n' (alveolar) and 'ŋ' (velar), having been changed into their non-nasal counterparts by the shortness and abruptness of the "entering" tone.

[Ted C.]

I don't think there's an academic consensus on why it's called the "entering" tone.

In Vietnamese, final consonants are pronounced as implosive consonants, in which air can actually enter the mouth somewhat. Maybe it was the same in classical Chinese? I'm just guessing. I don't think there's a way for us to know that.

It's tempting to think that "entering" tone is in some way the opposite of the "leaving" tone, but I suspect not. The word "leaving" seems to be a reference to a grammatical function rather than a phonetic feature. (Research indicates that the leaving tone is the remnants of a final "s" sound that was originally a grammatical inflection.)