Quick Overview on Tones

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Quick Overview on Tones

• Helen Meng
• The Chinese University of Hong Kong

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Mandarin Tone System

• 4 tones 1 light tone

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Cantonese Tone System

• 6 non-entering and 3 entering tones

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Phonetic Transcription Schemes

• Chinese character sets (scripts) simplified,
  traditional
• Pronunciation of a character tonal syllable
• syllable tone
• Different syllable inventory for different
  dialects, e.g. Mandarin (official), Cantonese
  (major dialect)
• syllable in Roman alphabets
• tone as a one-digit Arabic number
• Popular schemes are
• pinyin (for Mandarin) ?? (bank) /yin2 hang2/
• jyutping (for Cantonese) ?? (bank) /ngan4 hong4/

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lttonegt element
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Proposed lttonegt Element

• Tone
• Vary with meaning, context and speaking style
• ?
• in tone 2 means photo
• in tone 3 means facial appearance / minister
• Current SSML 1.0 phoneme
• Requires pronunciation transcription
• Example
• ltphoneme alphabet"x-lshk-jyutping"
  ph"soeng2"gt?lt/phonemegt
• ltphoneme alphabet"x-lshk-jyutping"
  ph"soeng3"gt?lt/phonemegt
• Proposed lttonegt element
• with the required value attribute
• lttone value"2"gt?lt/tonegt (photo)
• lttone value"3"gt?lt/tonegt (face appearance)
• inherit the alphabet attribute, or explicitly
  specify

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Examples of Using tone Element

• Tone changes with meaning
• ? (candy / sugar)
• lttone value"2"gt?lt/tonegt (tone 2 /tong2/ means
  candy)
• lttone value"4"gt?lt/tonegt (tone 4 /tong4/ means
  sugar)
• Tone changes with context
• ? (grandfather)
• ?lttone value"4"gt?lt/tonegt (tone 4 /je4/
  preceded by ?)
• ?lttone value"2"gt?lt/tonegt (tone 2 /je2/
  preceded by ?)
• Tone changes with speaking style
• ?? (English)
• ?lttone value4"gt?lt/tonegt (tone 4 /man4/
  formal, read)
• ?lttone value"2"gt?lt/tonegt (tone 2 /man2/
  colloquial)

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Tone Sandhi (Rules)

• For Mandarin
• Tone3 Tone3 ? Tone2 Tone3
• Etc.
• For Cantonese
• Tone4 Tone4 ? Tone4 Tone2 OR
• Tone4 Tone4 ? Tone4 Tone1
• Tone4 Tone4 (no change)
• Etc.

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END