Entering tone
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Entering tone (Simplified Chinese: 入声; Traditional Chinese: 入聲; pinyin: rùshēng) is one of four tones in the phonology in Middle Chinese. The tone is described as relatively short and sharp, which continues to be true for many (but not all) of the variants of Chinese that keeps this tone. In modern times, the entering tone has disappeared from most of the dialects of Mandarin (a broad group spoken in northern and southwestern China), but the tone is well-preserved in some southern Chinese groups such as Yue, Min, and Hakka.
Tones are an indispensable part of Chinese literature, as characters in poetry and prose were chosen according to tones and rhymes for their euphony. This use of language helps in reconstructing the pronunciation of Old Chinese and Middle Chinese, since the Chinese writing system is logographic.
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[edit] Phonetics
From a phonetic perspective, the entering tone is simply a syllable ending with a voiceless plosive [p], [t], or [k]. In some variants of Chinese, the final plosive has become the voiceless glottal plosive [ʔ]. Some linguists have also proposed reconstructions of Old Chinese that include voiced plosive consonants, or consonant clusters involving plosives.
[edit] History
It is now generally believed that the voiceless plosives that typify the entering tone have existed since Book of Songs in the Zhou Dynasty (1027–771 BC). In addition, there is a hypothesis that before the mid-Han dynasty, there were two kinds of entering tones, a long entering tone (which end in clusters like [ps], [ts], and [ks]) and a short entering tone. The long entering tone became the departing tone after the final consonant cluster was lost, while the short entering tone remained the entering tone.
The first Chinese philologists began to describe the phonology of Chinese during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, between 400 to 600, under the influence of Buddhism and the Sanskrit language that arrived along with it. There were several unsuccessful attempts to classify the tones of Chinese, before the establishment of the traditional four-tone description between 483 and 493. It is based on the Vedic theory of three intonations (聲明論). The middle intonation, Udātta, maps to the level tone (平聲); the upwards intonation, Svarita, to the rising tone (上聲); the downward intonation, Anudātta, to the departing tone (去聲). The distinctive sound of syllables ending with a plosive did not fit the three intonations and was categorised as the entering tone (入聲). The use of four-tone system flourished in the Sui and Tang dynasties. An important rime dictionary, Qieyun was written in this period.
It has been hypothesized that the entering tone was lost due to the influence of invading northern nomads such as the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1279–1368). The Zhongyuan Yinyun, a rime book of 1324, already shows signs of the disappearance of the entering tone and the emergence of the modern Mandarin tone system in its place. The precise time at which the entering tone was lost is unknown, though it was likely gone by the time of the Qing Dynasty.
[edit] Example
| Chinese character |
Constructed Middle Chinese |
Hokkienese (Min) |
Standard Cantonese |
Japanese (On'yomi, or Chinese reading) |
Korean |
Standard Mandarin (no entering tone) |
Main meaning (in English) |
| 合 | [ɣɑp] | hap8 | hap6 [hɐp] | gou, gat-, kat- | hap | he2 (hé) | union; close |
| 十 | [ʑip] | sip8/chap8 | sap6 [sɐp] | juu, jitsu | sip | shi2 (shí) | ten |
| 佛 | [vɪuət] | hut8/put8 | fat6 [fɐt] | butsu, futsu, hotsu, but- | bul | fo2 (fó) | Buddha |
| 八 | [pat] | peh/pat8 | baat3 [pɑt] | hachi, hatsu, hat- | bal | ba1 (bā) | eight |
| 易 | [jɐk] | i7/iah8 | yik6 [jɪk] | eki | yeok | yi4 (yì) | change and exchange |
| 客 | [kʰɪɐk] | kheh/khek | haak3 [hɑk] | kyaku, kaku, kyak- | gaek | ke4 (kè) | guest |
[edit] Entering tone in Chinese
[edit] Mandarin
The entering tone is extant in only one dialect of Mandarin, Yangtze Mandarin. In other dialects, the entering tone has been lost, and words that had the tone have been distributed into the four modern tonal categories, depending on the initial consonant of each word. The chart below summarizes the distribution in the different dialects.
| Voiceless | Nasal | Voiced | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peninsular Mandarin | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| Northeastern Mandarin | 1, 2, 3, 4 (mostly 3) | 4 | 2 |
| Beijing Mandarin | 1, 2, 3, 4 | 4 | 2 |
| Northcentral Mandarin | 1 | 4 | 2 |
| Central Plains Mandarin | 1 | 2 | |
| Northwestern Mandarin | 4 | 2 | |
| Southwestern Mandarin | 2 | ||
| Yangtze Mandarin | (entering tone preserved) | ||
[edit] Cantonese
Like most other variants of Chinese, Cantonese has changed initial voiced plosives, affricates and fricatives of Middle Chinese to their voiceless counterparts. To compensate for the lost of this difference, Cantonese has split each of the Middle Chinese tones into two, one for Middle Chinese voiced initial consonants (Yang) and one for Middle Chinese voiceless initial consonant (Yin). In addition, Cantonese has split the Yin-Entering tone into two, with a higher tone for short vowels and a lower tone for long vowels. As a result, Cantonese now has three entering tones:
- Upper (Short Yin)
- Middle (Long Yin)
- Lower (Yang)
The entering tone in Cantonese has retained its short and sharp character.
[edit] Hakka
[edit] Min
Southern Min has two entering tones:
- Upper (Yin)
- Lower (Yang)
Words with entering tones end with either a glottal stop, p, t or k (all unaspirated). There are many words that have different finals in their literary and colloquial forms.
[edit] Entering tone in Sino-Xenic
Many Chinese words were borrowed into Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese during the Middle Chinese period, so these languages preserve the entering tone to varying degrees.
[edit] Japanese
Because Japanese does not allow a syllable to end with a consonant, the endings -k, -p, -t were rendered as separate syllables -ku or -ki, -pu, and -ti (-chi) or -tu (-tsu) respectively. Later phonological changes further altered some of the endings:
- In some cases where the ending is immediately followed by an unvoiced consonant in a compound, the ending is lost, and the consonant becomes geminate.
- Examples: gaku + kou becomes gakkou (school), and shitsu + hai becomes shippai (failure)
- The -pu ending changes into -u. (pu>fu>hu>u)
- Example: jipu (ten) becomes jū
It is possible to recover the original ending by examining the historical kana used in spelling a word.
[edit] Korean
Korean keeps the -k and -p endings, while the -t ending has changed into -l.
[edit] Reconstruction of the entering tone from Mandarin
Although it is hard to distinguish words of entering tone origin based on Mandarin pronunciation only, it is possible to do so to an extent with the help of the phonetic component of each Chinese character. For example, if one already knows that 白 (white) is of the entering tone, then one can conjecture that 拍 (beat), 柏 (fir), 帛 (white cloth), 迫 (urgent) are also of entering tone. Although this method is not completely accurate, it is a quick way to identify characters of the entering tone.
