Do you Agree with this?

[iMeng@Meng]

A String of 3rd Tones

Consider this:

我

只有

兩本

法語

書

. (

Wǒ

zhǐ yǒu

liǎng běn

Fǎyǔ

shū; I only have two French books.) Which of the following is how you will say the sentence?

Wo (half 3rd)

zhi(2) you (half 3rd)

liang(2) ben(half 3rd)

Fa(2)yu(half 3rd)

shū.

Wo (2)

zhi(2) you (half 3rd)

liang(2) ben(half 3rd)

Fa(2)yu(half 3rd)

shū.

Both are acceptable. Notice how the sentence is divided into color-coded "groups of meaning", and how tones change accordingly.

Taken from http://web.mit.edu/jinzhang/www/pinyin/tones/index.html turn off your speakers the sound is kinda weird for like a minute or two.

And do you agree with the rest of the way the tones are explained here? Especially the 4 and 4 tone ?

[abcdefg]

A couple years ago I saw some episodes of saw a TV series 电视剧 that was done with full dynasty costumes, except that instead of being serious, it was played for laughs. One high ranking court lady was named Wuwu Wuwu and each "wu" had a different tone. The name was nonsensical, and the actors made a point of "overpronouncing" all four tones. Might have been 武无乌物, but I cannot swear to it.

[Demonic_Duck]

How would this alter if the last word was also third tone?

[chestnut818]

"我" should be 3rd tone only I think..tones change according to the words not the sentence ..我， 只有，两本，法语书。they are 4 words...so maybe 我 should not change the tone...

[Himin]

Just checked http://web.mit.edu/j...ones/index.html I agree with the most explanation about the tone, But I don't quite agree with the explaination about "the 4 and 4 tone". The difference is very subtle. And I think the reason is not about the tone, but the "stress" or "rhythm" of "4+4" words.

I agree with chestnut818, "我" should be 3rd thon only.

[Ludens]

tones change according to the words not the sentence

Is this true (I don't think so)? Then how do you pronounce 我有?

[iMeng@Meng]

Well I have a problem with the third tone

when I se it with another third I usually go half thrd then 2nd.... can I do that?

[chestnut818]

I think I need correct my answer, 我 here can pronounce both 2rd and 3rd tones, it depends on which one u want to emphasize,and if ther is a stop between 我and 只有……I didn't realize this before, sorry.

And I think about another one,"我也有“, it has two ways to pronouce too .

[陳德聰]

I tried saying the sentence in OP a couple of times and I found that I favour the first possibility [wo] with half 3rd.

As for the sandhi only happening on a word level and not between words, that's perhaps a misunderstanding? The third tone sandhi has nothing to do with words at all: it is conditioned by the phonological environment, more specifically the tones. When 3rd tones are beside each other, there is sandhi. Once again, has nothing to do with word boundaries.

E.g., 你好、你好吗、我很好、我也很好

I usually go half thrd then 2nd

No.

[jiacheng]

The first seems the most natural to me, of course I'm a non-native speaker

[gil'c]

should be: 我只有两本法语书 wo (3) zhi (2) you (3) liang (2) ben (3) fa (2) yu (3) shu (1).

the rule is: whenever there are two words which form a phrase and both pronounce the thrid tones and going one after the other, the first word automatically becomes to a second tone. it is rather normal in our daily speaking life. examples are many, like 史老师 shi (2) lao (3) shi (1), 很讲究 hen (2) jiang (3) jiu (1).

this is just like the rule of changing the pronounciation of a letter that goes after the sound "S" in english, like STAR or SPEAK. the "T" and the "P" sounds change to a "D" and a "B" sound, automatically. in chinese i think it is kind of the same.

[外国赤佬]

this is just like the rule of changing the pronounciation of a letter that goes after the sound "S" in english, like STAR or SPEAK. the "T" and the "P" sounds change to a "D" and a "B" sound, automatically.

Oh my God, not again...

[陳德聰]

@外国赤佬

It's funny you seem to think it's not true, but /p/, /t/, and /k/ are all unaspirated after /s/ in English and while we do not write "sdar" or "sbeak", that is a much more orthographically accurate representation of the sounds we produce, since /b/, /d/, and /g/ phonemes in English are not actually voiced, but instead get their distinction from the difference in aspiration.

But I do not agree with gil'c since it is not on a phrasal level that the tone sandhi occurs.

[外国赤佬]

Since when did English lose voiced consonants? Enlighten me, please.

[Glenn]

while we do not write "sdar" or "sbeak", that is a much more orthographically accurate representation of the sounds we produce

Or just as accurate as "star" and "speak", since you add voicing where it isn't present when you write them "sdar" and "sbeak", whereas native English speakers probably don't realize that aspiration is lost (so to speak) when "t" and "p" follow other consonants in an initial cluster. Either way, I disagree that "sdar" and "sbeak" are better orthographical representations, particularly because [t] and [p] are allophones of /t/ and /p/, but [d] and are not. In fact, they're different phonemes.

[陳德聰]

Since I last checked, phonemes and letters are not the same thing.

[Glenn]

That's true, but since "t" and "p" are thought of as /t/ and /p/ by native speakers (as far as I'm aware) and "d" and "b" are thought of as /d/ and /b/, they're close enough in this case. Do you disagree?

[陳德聰]

Okay let me clarify, since I'm weaving in and out of using proper linguistic terms and layman ones and it really jumbles it up:

Spelling the word "star" as "sdar" would be more orthographically accurate considering the fact that the letter "d" almost exclusively represents the sound [t] in English, but the only time the letter "t" represents the sound [t] is in the post--sound position, e.g., star, stye, stay, etc. Otherwise it generally represents the sound [tʰ] or [ɾ] as in "tar", or "butter".

This is the same thing as tone sandhi in the sense that the 3rd tone alternates as a half, a full, and a 2nd tone depending on the phonological context it occurs in, though the reasoning behind spelling "star" with a "t" instead of a "d" is similar to that of why we write 友好 as yǒuhǎo and not as yóuhǎo despite saying it that way. But I suspect that this knowledge and understanding of allophonic variation is not what prompted the response from 外国赤佬 in #12.

As an aside:

Since when did English lose voiced consonants? Enlighten me, please.

It never lost them. But b, d, and g are not fully voiced stops and it doesn't even matter because the voicing isn't even useful for us in distinguishing between words like "pie" and "buy" because we use the presence of aspiration and not the voicing to hear the difference.