ESL General English Grammar Questions

Re: Tone contour

Avangi — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:08:27 GMT

Thanks, New2 and Wang.

Re: Tone contour

Lcwang — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:28:55 GMT

Hi, Avangi:

The answer to your first question is yes, to the second question, I am afraid I can't give you an answer, as we are not really aware of that. Perhaps some particular person with particular speaking habit may do that.

Regards
Wang

Re: Tone contour

New2grammar — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 07:01:49 GMT

Avangi
That is, does one slide from five to one (5-4-3-2-1) or move abruptly so that the intermediate levels are not noticable?

Tricky...The transition is usually very quick. You can prolong it and it will still be understandable but dragging it too long may sound weird. Nobody says it that way. Just a man's opinion.

Re: Tone contour

Avangi — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 06:54:21 GMT

Lcwang
We use a five level “tone counter” system to describe the tone.

Hi, Wang. I'm beginning to get the picture. The single-syllable character "ma" has four tones and four meanings. The first is "pronounced" by changing levels twice - starting at level 2, then dropping to the lowest level, then rising quite high to level 4. The second "tone" is spoken at the highest level, and does not change. The third tone starts at the highest level and then drops to the lowest level. The fourth tone begins at mid level (3) and then rises to the highest level.

May I ask two questions? (1) would the average person pronounce "mother" (ma 55) at the exact same level on every occasion? (2) does one use what's known in music as "portamento" (carrying the tone - what you would call the level) in passing from five to one in "scolding"? That is, does one slide from five to one (5-4-3-2-1) or move abruptly so that the intermediate levels are not noticable?

Regards, - A.

Re: Tone contour

Lcwang — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 03:49:35 GMT

Hi, nona the brit:

I think I got your point. Thank you.

Wang

Re: Tone contour

Lcwang — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 03:47:25 GMT

Hi Avangi:

Sorry for confusion. Let me try to make it clearer: Every Chinese word (generally understood as "character". Every word or every character has only one syllable) has four different tones. These tone are ‘set’ and don’t change according to speaking situations. The same word with different tone has different meaning. We use a five level “tone counter” system to describe the tone. That’s why we have ma 214 to mean horse, ma 55 to mean mother, ma 51 to mean scolding, or 35 numbness.

As to the other questions you raised, they are beyond my knowledge to reply. I am sorry.

regards / Wang

Re: Tone contour

nona the brit — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:20:34 GMT

This is hard for English speakers to learn as although we use different tones, they are not 'set' and certainly do not completely change the meaning of a word. We mainly use them to add what you might call the emotional meaning of a word beyond its literal meaning. well there are some cases where we change the meaning and perhaps just pointing some examples out would help your pupils.

For example

What are you doing that for? Can be said in a way that means a genuine question, or an annoyed/exasperated/upset/frustrated/angry statement, all depending on the tones used.

I have some contact with a tonal language that has 3 tones that completely change the meaning of the words. People are taught to think of 'doh ray me' and whether to use a doh tone, a ray tone or a me tone for each part of the word. You could extend this to doh ray me far. These are names of notes in the Western tradition of music that most people will know (certainly if they've ever seen the film The Sound of Music!). This might help get sufficient difference to the tones, but they might not match the correct Chinese tones, I don't know. It would help you get the point across, anyway. You can also draw a line representing the shape of the tones, rather than numbers, so a word that starts with a low tone, goes up to a high tone, then returns to the low tone would be accompanied by a line that looks like the general symbol shape for mountain, for example. Up to a peak, then down again.

Re: Tone contour

New2grammar — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 08:24:46 GMT

I think the answer is yes. I know it's true for pitch and according to wiki, tone and pitch have a positive relationship, so yes, IMO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_(music)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_%28linguistics%29

Re: Tone contour

Avangi — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 08:12:14 GMT

Hi Wang,

I'm puzzles about the 4-tone vs the 5-tone system. In describing the 4-tone system you've used 1,2, 3, 4, and 5.

Also, I was hoping you'd respond to my question about the approximately 1-octave change in pitch range which all males experience during youth.

Has anyone used Hertz (cycles per second) in describing the four tones?

Best wishes, - A.

Re: Tone contour

Anonymous — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 05:20:22 GMT

Hi. Avangi

My name is Wang. Thank you very much for taking so much time to answer my question. The four tones of the Chinese characters are not really like the intonation of an English sentence or expression. The pitch in fact is a part of the character. A same character with different tone carries different meaning. For example, the character representing Horse is pronounced as ma with the tone being 214. But ma with tone of 55 would mean mother, or 51 scolding, or 35 numbness.

And yes, all native speakers share the same four tones, naturally, when they start to acquire the language as a baby. But this feature of the Chinese language is very difficult for the English speaking learners of Chinese to grasp. I am just trying to refer the students to something similar in English for the them to understand.

Regards

Re: Tone contour

Avangi — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:33:58 GMT

New2grammar
I have no idea what those numbers represent. . . . . . you can say it louder of softer

Just as you could assign numbers from one to five to represent the loudness, or accent of the syllables in a sentence, you could represent the pitch level (Hertz) at which you speak/sing the vowel tones by a scale of one to five. Sometimes the pitch rises or falls on the vowel sound of a given syllable. That's why the OP represented the "dont" in each example by two numbers. (I believe there's a forum devoted to this sort of thing.)

You ask a girl if she'll go with you to a dance. She replies, "Don't you wish!" The pitch level would probably stay constant across "don't you" and then fall sharply on the short "i" vowel of "wish." There's probably a dwell at the higher level followed by a dwell at the low level, rather than a trombone style glissando, sliding down across the range, hence well represented by two numbers.

- A.

Re: Tone contour

Avangi — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:03:42 GMT

Hi Anon,

I'm fascinated by the subject, though uneducated in it's linguistic applications.

Pitch recognition, like color recognition, is a mysterious phenomenon. Most "western" musicians consider it rare, possibly genetic, or inborn. Some are envious of those who have that strange ability, but some who have it consider it a curse. I've only known a handful of them personally.

A couple of years ago I read of a study involving some Asian population, in which adult native speakers were recorded, speaking a number of typical phrases in their native tongue. A month later the same subjects repeated the process, and it was discovered that without exception the pitches of the intonations were identical to the originals. It was concluded that this "sense" of pitch recognition, or repeatability, is learned. However, further investigation showed that it must be learned as a child. That is, a westerner could not move to an Asian country as a teenager, become immersed in the language, and acquire this ability. This is something of a revelation.

My point is that I realize the significance of intonation to a westerner is extremely different from what it is to those who have grown up in Asian countries - at least in some of them.

I believe that CJ and Kooyeen are well versed in all aspects of the sound of English, including intonation, and would be qualified to comment on the usefulness of a four- or five-level system of pitch analysis. You correctly understood my remarks about a given sentence being spoken with varying intonations as the circumstances change. I gather this is different in your native language.

As an aside, I wonder if you can tell me how teenage males deal with the problem of the changing voice. Are the four tones strictly relative and unique to the individual, or do all people of a common voice range share the same four tones?

Best wishes, - A.

Re: Tone contour

Anonymous — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 10:01:06 GMT

MSKDear Avangi:

Thank you for your reply. As you may know, every Chinese character has four tones (ptich), and different tones of each character have different meanings. This present difficulties for English speaking students in learning Chinese. I think maybe I can make students understand the tone differences by giving them English equivalence. But according to your reply, the pitch of English words changes circumstantially. My idea may not be workable.

Regards

Re: Tone contour

New2grammar — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 09:15:39 GMT

I see. Could you tell me about the tones you replied to the poster? I have no idea what those numbers represent. A don't is a don't though you can say it louder of softer depending on how awake you're.

Re: Tone contour

Avangi — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 09:08:11 GMT

Hey, Buddy, I'm just wingin' it. I've never played before either, but as a musician I have a perverted interest in pitch and tone.

I'm assuming as you sing up through the "notes" of your speaking voice, we divide them into five levels, "5" being highest. Even though "don't" has only one syllable, you can change pitch while you're saying it, rising, falling or staying the same. 33 would be middle range, neither rising nor falling.