--- In cybalist@..., "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...> wrote:
>
> Brian Beck participates:
> >Cantonese has 9 basic tones as opposed to Mandarin's 4.
>
> The number varies from dictionary to dictionary and certainly there
are
> dialectal differences as well.
>
> > 1 yat(')
> > 2 yi(_)
> > 3 saam(\)
> > 4 sei(--)
> > 5 ng(_/)
> > 6 luk(.)(not 'lok')
>
> Alright, but there are dictionaries I've seen where it is
spelled "lok". At
> any rate, the "o" is certainly a high rounded vowel of some kind
> nonetheless. I pronounce it a little higher than a carefully
pronounced "oh"
> or French "eau".
>
> > 7 chat(')
> > 8 baat(-)
> > 9 gao(-/)
> > 10 sap(.)
> >Where:
> > ' is a high clipped tone
>
> Afaik, the falling tone I mentioned can be level or falling
depending on
> dialect. Clipped? Are you going by audible perception? It probably
only
> sounds clipped because of the contrast between short and long
vowels. I
> notice how you tend to regularly give the short vowels the (')
marker like
> /chat(')/ but give the long vowels a falling or level marker
like /baat(-)/.
> I think this is what causes you to believe so strongly in "nine"
tones when
> there are most likely less in reality. Just my thoughts anyway.
Tchüs.
>
> - gLeN
>
Hi Glen,
I am referring to the generally accepted standard Cantonese
pronunciation based on the dialect of Gwangzhou. Many Cantonese
dialects differ considerably from this standard. Standard Cantonese,
as I said, has 9 basic tones:
High falling middle level middle rising high clipped middle
clipped
Low falling low level low rising low clipped
There are, however, 2 extra modified tones, high level and a long,
low rising tone. These usually occur:
a) in some grammatical words peculiar to Cantonese, e.g. bin- (high
level tone), who, which; la (high level tone) a modal particle often
added at the end of a command or imperative sentence.
b) In some words to change the meaning to something more familiar or
diminutive, e.g. tong (low falling), sugar, modified to tong (long
low rising tone), candy or sweet. These words probably originated
from contractions with a diminutive suffix "i" (high falling),
meaning child. Note also phrases like "yat go yan" (yan low
falling), `one person', but "yat go yan" (yan high level), `on
one's own'.
c) Many borrowings of foreign words tend to be pronounce in the high
level tone, e.g. gaa-fei, coffee, both syllables pronounce high level.
The term "clipped" to refer to the old "entering" tones dates back at
least to the early 1960's when I first learnt my Cantonese. It is
true that the clipped tones are basically only level tones which end
in stops and some scholars don't bother to distinguish them from the
level tones.
In regard to luk/lok, the vowel is a high rounded back vowel, similar
to standard English `look', not as rounded as that in German `Buch'.
If you use the spelling `o' for this vowel, how do you distinguish
between the words `luk', six, `lok', descend, `duk', read and `dok',
measure? The second vowel in these pairs is lower and less rounded
than the first. Both the Yale and the Barnett-Chao systems of
Romanisation use `u' and `o' to distinguish these vowels. Sorry for
getting off-topic.
Regards,
Brian Beck