{"id":4603,"date":"2011-07-13T12:09:38","date_gmt":"2011-07-13T04:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/?p=4603"},"modified":"2018-08-28T14:50:10","modified_gmt":"2018-08-28T06:50:10","slug":"the-where-and-why-of-missing-second-tones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/2011\/the-where-and-why-of-missing-second-tones\/","title":{"rendered":"The where and why of missing second tones"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"imageMy previous post<\/a> mentioned that not all tonal permutations exist in the real world. For example, modern standard Mandarin has zhōng<\/span>, zhǒng<\/span>, and zhòng<\/span>, but doesn’t have zhóng<\/span>. I did not, however, get into any of the reasons for the absence of second-tone zhong<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Fortunately, my friend James E. Dew, who is much more qualified than I to discuss such fine points of linguistics, was kind enough to send in the explanation below. Jim used to teach the Chinese language and linguistics at the University of Michigan; and for many years he directed the Inter-University Program (a.k.a. the Stanford Center) in Taipei. He is also the author of 6000 Chinese Words: A Vocabulary Frequency Handbook<\/em><\/a> and coauthor of Classical Chinese: A Functional Approach<\/em><\/a>. <\/p>\n

Most simply stated, Mandarin syllable shapes with unaspirated occlusive initials and nasal finals don’t occur in second tone. This can be restated a bit less opaquely for those who have not studied Chinese historical phonology, as follows:<\/p>\n

Syllables that begin with unaspirated stops b<\/em>, d<\/em>, g<\/em>, or affricates j<\/em>, zh<\/em>, z<\/em>, and end in a nasal n<\/em> or ng<\/em>, as a rule don’t have second-tone forms.<\/strong> There are a few exceptions, such as béng<\/em> (甭<\/span> \/ “needn’t”) and zán<\/em> (咱<\/span> \/ “we”), which were new words formed by contraction — from búyòng<\/em> and zámén<\/em>, respectively — after the tone class split described below took place.<\/p>\n

This came about because when Middle Chinese (of Sui-Tang times) píngshēng<\/em><\/span> 平声\/平聲<\/span> split into yīnpíng<\/em><\/span> 阴平\/陰平<\/span> (modern Mandarin “first tone”) and yángpíng<\/em><\/span> 阳平\/陽平<\/span> (M “second tone”), syllables with aspirated initials went into the new yángpíng<\/em><\/span> class, while those with unaspirated initials all fell into the yīnpíng<\/em><\/span> (M first tone) group, thus leaving no unaspirated syllables with nasal finals in the modern Mandarin second tone class.<\/p>\n

An interesting corollary to this rule is that among Mandarin “open” syllables (those that end in a vowel) with the above-listed initials, almost all of the second-tone syllables derive from Middle Chinese rùshēng<\/em><\/span> 入声\/入聲<\/span>, and their cognates have stop endings in the southern dialects<\/span> that preserve rùshēng<\/em><\/span>, as illustrated by the Cantonese examples given below.<\/p>\n

For those who like to pronounce what they read, Cantonese rùshēng<\/em> syllables have level tones, either high, mid or low. In the Yale romanization used here, high tone is marked with a macron (e.g., dāk<\/em><\/span>), mid tone is unmarked, and low tone is signified by an h<\/em> following the vowel. A double “aa<\/em>” sounds like the “a<\/em>” in “father,” while a single “a<\/em>” is a mid central vowel. Thus baht<\/em> sounds like English “but” and dāk<\/em><\/span> sounds like English “duck.”<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
 <\/th>\nMandarin<\/th>\nCantonese<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
拔<\/td>\nbá<\/td>\nbaht<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
白<\/td>\nbái<\/td>\nbaahk<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
薄<\/td>\nbáo<\/td>\nbohk<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
別\/别<\/td>\nbié<\/td>\nbiht<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
伯<\/td>\nbó<\/td>\nbaak<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
博<\/td>\nbó<\/td>\nbok<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
答<\/td>\ndá<\/td>\ndaap<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
德<\/td>\ndé<\/td>\ndāk<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
敵\/敌<\/td>\ndí<\/td>\ndihk<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
毒<\/td>\ndú<\/td>\nduhk<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
格<\/td>\ngé<\/td>\ngaak<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
閣\/阁<\/td>\ngé<\/td>\ngok<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
國\/国<\/td>\nguó<\/td>\ngwok<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
急<\/td>\njí<\/td>\ngāp<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
極\/极<\/td>\njí<\/td>\ngihk<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
集<\/td>\njí<\/td>\njaahp<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
夾\/夹<\/td>\njiá<\/td>\ngaap<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
結\/结<\/td>\njié<\/td>\ngit<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
節\/节<\/td>\njié<\/td>\njit<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
菊<\/td>\njú<\/td>\ngūk<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
覺\/觉<\/td>\njué<\/td>\ngok<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
決\/决<\/td>\njué<\/td>\nkyut<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
雜\/杂<\/td>\nzá<\/td>\njaahp<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
澤\/泽<\/td>\nzé<\/td>\njaahk<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
閘\/闸<\/td>\nzhá<\/td>\njaahp<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
宅<\/td>\nzhái<\/td>\njaahk<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
哲<\/td>\nzhé<\/td>\njit<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
執\/执<\/td>\nzhí<\/td>\njāp<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
直<\/td>\nzhí<\/td>\njihk<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
竹<\/td>\nzhú<\/td>\njūk<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
濁\/浊<\/td>\nzhuó<\/td>\njuhk<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My previous post mentioned that not all tonal permutations exist in the real world. For example, modern standard Mandarin has zhōng, zhǒng, and zhòng, but doesn’t have zhóng. I did not, however, get into any of the reasons for the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,4,12,106,28,95,32,138,20,127,105],"tags":[748,747,749],"class_list":["post-4603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cantonese","category-china","category-chinese","category-hanyu","category-languages","category-linguistics","category-mandarin","category-philology","category-pinyin","category-tonal-languages","category-tone-marks","tag-james-e-dew","tag-james-erwin-dew","tag-jim-dew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4603"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7900,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4603\/revisions\/7900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}