{"id":48236,"date":"2020-08-26T17:08:29","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T22:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=48236"},"modified":"2020-08-28T16:50:04","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T21:50:04","slug":"when-intonation-overrides-tone-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=48236","title":{"rendered":"When intonation overrides tone, part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some folks think that intonation never overrides tones, but I'm convinced on the basis of empirical evidence that it does.<\/p>\r\n

For example:<\/p>\r\n

N\u01d0 xi\u01ceng g\u00e0n h\u0101 \u4f60\u60f3\u5e72\u54c8 –> N\u01d0 xi\u01ceng g\u00e0n h\u00e1 \u4f60\u60f3\u5e72\u54c8 (\"what do you want to do?\") — especially in the Northeast.<\/p>\r\n

Here are some other examples — all of them provided by native speakers of MSM (Modern Standard Mandarin):<\/span><\/p>\r\n

A.<\/span><\/div>\r\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\r\n
1. \u4e0d\uff08 b\u00f9 [\"no\"]\uff09\uff1aSometimes, I would say\u00a0 \u4e0d ( b\u00fa) even though there is no falling tone character after\u00a0 \u4e0d to invoke tone sandhi, such as \"\u6211\u4e0d \u00a0(\u00a0b\u00fa)\". This happens when somebody asks me to do something I don't like, I will say \u4e0d (\u00a0b\u00fa) to express my rejection.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\r\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\r\n
2.\u4e2d\u95f4 (zh\u014dngji\u0101n [\"in; among; between; amidst\"])\uff1a Sometimes, I would say \u4e2d\u95f4 \uff08<\/span><\/span>zh\u014dng<\/span>ji\u00e0n\uff09to emphasize the place.\u00a0 I think most people will commonly pronounce this phrase as\u00a0 \u4e2d\u95f4 \uff08<\/span><\/span>zh\u014dngji\u00e0n), but it is \"wrong\".\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\r\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\r\n
3. \u90fd\u00a0(d\u014du [\"all\"]):\u00a0 \u00a0I will pronounce this character as\u00a0d\u00f3u when I want to emphasize the meaning \"all.\" For example, \u6211\u90fd \u00a0(d\u00f3u) \u5199\u5b8c\u4e86 I finish them all<\/b>, \u4ed6\u90fd\u00a0(d\u00f3u) \u5403\u5b8c\u4e86\uff0che ate them all<\/b>. But here, I am thinking about whether I am influenced by \u4e1c\u5317 Northeastern \/ dongbei topolect because I think dongbei people will commonly use the pronunciation d\u00f3u\u00a0.<\/span><\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n

4. \u8c01\u00a0 (shui [\"who\"]) : when I want to ask who it is, I would say \u8c01\u5440 (sh\u00e9i ya). I don't think people may say \u201cshui\u201d in oral language.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\r\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\r\n
5. \u6162\u6162\u7684 \uff08m\u00e0nman de [\"slowly\"]), \u597d\u597d\u7684 \uff08h\u01ceo h\u01ceo de [\"well; good\"])\uff1aWhen I was a little child, my parents used to say \u201c\u6162 m\u00e0n \u6162\u00a0m\u0101n \u7684\u201d, and \u201c\u597d h\u01ceo \u597d \u00a0h\u0101o \u7684\u201d. I think the changes of the pronunciation imply their commanding tone that I should slow down or I should be obedient.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\r\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\r\n
6. \u8fc7\u53bb (gu\u00f2q\u00f9 [\"past\"]) <\/span> \u51fa\u53bb (ch\u016bq\u00f9 [\"go out\"]): Sometimes, I would change both \u53bb from\u00a0\u201cq\u00f9\u201d to \u201cqie\u201d. It is a good way to highlight the nature of the movement of \u8fc7 and \u51fa because \u53bb loses its tone.<\/span><\/div>\r\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\r\n
7. \u591a\u00a0\uff08du\u014d [\"much; many\"]): When \u591a becomes an adverb of degree, such as \u591a\u597d\u5440 (\"how good!\")\uff0c\u591a\u7f8e\u597d (\"how wonderful!\")\uff0c\u591a\u6d6a\u6f2b\u5440 (\"how romantic!\"). The pronunciation will change from\u00a0 du\u014d\u00a0to\u00a0du\u00f3. For example, \u8fd9\u4e2a\u591a du\u00f3 \u8d35\u5440 (\"how expensive this is!\"). This change of tone from first to second emphasizes the adjectives.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\r\n
\u00a0<\/div>\r\n
I am thinking that maybe some of the intonations are influenced by different topolects, and people gradually get used to saying them in a non-standard way for MSM, and put these intonations into different contexts.\u00a0<\/div>\r\n

\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

B.<\/div>\r\n
Intonation overriding tone.\u00a0 I can't think of such cases in either Mandarin or Yuyaonese \u9918\u59da\u8a71, the tongue of my mom's hometown, which is near Ningbo in Zhejiang. If someone is totally outraged, I can imagine it occurring, but I don't think there's any standard variation. Chinese don't pay attention to tones 99% of time they speak — unless someone gets them wrong, which would have an impact on the meaning.\u00a0<\/div>\r\n
\u00a0<\/div>\r\n
Because tone is an integral part of the semantics of spoken Chinese language, intonation hardly ever supersedes it — at least from my experience. Or I'd say tone doesn't exist in daily communication among the Chinese, except when it's wrong. Of course people from different areas pronounce things differently, but I think that's another question — what is assumed here is a relatively homogeneous linguistic group.<\/div>\r\n
\u00a0<\/div>\r\n
Does tone ever change then? I think yes in the cases of some final particles — you can give them a tone with an intended meaning since their usual lack thereof makes it easy to add tone, e.g., \u554a \u00e0, \u561b m\u00e1, \u5565 sh\u00e1 \/ sh\u00e0, but even in the latter cases people often speak such particles in the fourth tone to poke fun at Northeasterners who are perceived to have a proclivity for the fourth tone that sounds funny to people from elsewhere.<\/div>\r\n


C.
Normally, when people say \"aloha\", the first syllable has medium pitch, the second is higher and accented, and the third is lower and unaccented.\u00a0 When I was in Hawaii during the break, I heard foreigners (including US mainlanders), saying the first two syllables in a lower pitch and unaccented, while the third was exceptionally rising and accented.\u00a0 It sounded definitely alien to me.\u00a0 It was difficult to tell whether the people who did this were intentionally wanting to make the one word of Hawaiian they knew sound more exotic, or whether it just unconsciously came out that way.\u00a0 Perhaps it was a kind of self-mockery.\u00a0 Cf. this \"'Ni hao' for foreigners<\/a> \" (10\/11\/16).\u00a0 Regardless of the motivation, the usual pronunciation (pitch, accent, and tone) of \"aloha\" and \"ni hao\" (\"how are you?\" in these instances were both radically changed, including by some native speakers, but for special purposes and effects.<\/p>\r\n

Three takeaways from this brief exercise:<\/p>\r\n

1.<\/p>\r\n

Even in morphosyllabic (notice that I did not say \"monosyllabic\") Sinitic topolects and languages, one must take into account the existence of suprasegmental features.\u00a0 In living speech, one cannot just focus on the canonical tones prescribed in dictionaries for single characters.<\/p>\r\n

2.<\/p>\r\n

Native speakers of Sinitic topolects and languages are customarily not conscious of tones \"99% of the time\".\u00a0 It's only when a pronunciation strikes them as \"wrong\" that they become aware of it.<\/p>\r\n

3.<\/p>\r\n

Actual speech, whether within or across topolects and idiolects, affords a great deal of leeway for the execution of tones according to context (urgency, despondency), emotion (extreme joy, anger or outrage) musicality (rap, pop), and so on.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

Selected readings<\/b><\/p>\r\n