Tones Sui phonology sketch

3.2.4 Tones

In common with most other Tai-Kadai languages, Sui is a tonal language. This means that pitch is used to distinguish meaning. Two words can be pronounced identically apart from their pitch and have entirely different meanings. For example, the word fa in Sandong Sui means ‘aunt’ when pronounced with a high falling tone, but it means ‘goat’ when pronounced with a low falling tone. Sui has six lexical tones on unchecked or “live” syllables syllables with a vowel or nasal coda, referred to by the numbers 1 to 6, and two lexical tones on checked or “dead” syllables syllables with a stop coda, referred to by the numbers 7 and 8. The tones on checked syllables vary slightly in pitch and contour depending on whether the vowel is long or short. Note that the tone numbers 1 to 8 do not relate to the pitch of the tones. They simply represent eight distinct tonal categories. Each lexical tone i.e., tonal category is not necessarily pronounced with the same pitch or contour in every Sui dialect. However, each tonal category has the same phonetic pitch realisation for every word that carries that tonal category when pronounced in the same dialect. For example, words carrying Tone 6 are always pronounced with a high, level tone in Sandong dialect. However, the same words carrying Tone 6 are always pronounced with a mid, rising tone in Tingpai dialect. Thus, Tone 6 has a different phonetic realisation in Sandong dialect than in Tingpai dialect. Pitch values and pitch plots for the eight lexical tones in each of the dialects surveyed are given in appendix G. The phonetic realisation or tone values of the eight tone categories in Sandong dialect as spoken in Shuigen village are shown in table 3.3. Throughout this book, phonetic tone values are transcribed using Chaos 1930 pitch scale of 1 to 5, where 5 indicates the highest pitch and 1 indicates the lowest pitch. The same pitch number repeated indicates a level tone, and different pitch numbers in succession indicate contour. For example, 55 indicates a high, level tone; 24 indicates a mid, rising tone; and 213 represents a low, dipping tone. Table 3.3. Sui tone values Shuigen village, Sandong. Unchecked syllables Checked syllables Tone number: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Tone value: 13 31 33 53 35 55 Short vowel: 5 4 Long vowel: 24 33 The neutral tone which occurs on unstressed and minor syllables could be counted as an extra lexical tone. This tone is commonly represented with the number 0 zero. However, since all minor syllables are identifiable with major syllables, an underlying phonemic tone can almost always be ascertained although the speaker is not necessarily aware of it. In some parts of Sandu county mainly Western Sui areas, although including northern Central areas such as Zhonghe, Tone 6 is realised as a mid-rising tone 24, although Chinese loanwords which bear the third tone in Mandarin are still realised with a high-level tone 55 as they are in the rest of the Sui region. This high-level tone, which occurs only on modern loanwords, is commonly referred to as Tone 6 even though, from a historical perspective, it did not split from Tone 6 in order to distinguish it from the mid-rising tone on native Sui words.

3.3 Challenges to tracking sound changes in Sui