47 - Chinese tones

Summary

The Chinese tonal system can be interpreted in terms of three tonemes, viz. level (unmarked), rising, and falling, or pʿing shêng, shang shêng, and chʿü shêng, respectively. The so-called ju shêng of Chinese philologists is simply the level tone in syllables with final stop consonant (glottal stop in many modern dialects). The three tonemes are conditioned (in Ar. and Anc. Ch.) by the initial, being relatively high in words with surd initial, relatively low in words with sonant initial. With the general shift from sonant to surd initials shortly after the Anc. Ch. period (A.D. 600–900), the high and low varieties of each toneme tended to become phonemically distinct, so that all modern dialects have several separate tonemes. The falling toneme has generally been regarded as of late origin, by Chinese as well as Western scholars. It is undoubtedly significant that many Anc. Ch. words derived from Ar. Ch. forms in -g or -d should bear this toneme, but we find it also with words in final -m, -n, or -ng, in which loss of final cannot be postulated. We must infer, then, that all three tonemes existed in Ar. Ch.

A careful comparison of Chinese tones with the Tibeto-Karen system represented by Burmese-Lolo and Karen has yielded no positive results.