Tones

Table of contents
  1. Tones
  2. Tones Introduction
  3. IPA Tone Transcription
  4. List of Tones
    1. Tone Class
    2. Tone Category
    3. Combinatorial Tones
    4. Tone Classification
  5. Pitch Contour
    1. F0 Calculation Method
    2. Pitch Contour Analysis
      1. Tone Type Analysis
      2. Tone Category Analysis

Tones Introduction

  1. Pitch refers to the number of glottal pulses1 per second (Hz)
    1. Pitch is an equivalent term for Fundamental Frequency or F0 or if you’re quirky, glottal pulses per second!
    2. More glottal pulses => higher pitch
  2. Tones are pitch modulations (changes) throughout an utterance
    1. Ex: the IPA denoted 53 tone would be a high pitch at onset then low pitch following
    2. The modulation of F0 throughout an utterance is known as a Pitch Contour which can be plotted as F0 vs. Time
  3. From a Gestural Framework, the goal of High Tone or Low Tone are achieved by constrictions of the articulators or muscles in the lower portion of the Vocal Tract
  High Tone Low Tone
Tension Goal Increase Longitudinal Tension Decrease Vertical Tension
Articulator Goal Increase Angle between Cricoid and Thyroid Cartilages Lower Larynx
Muscle Involved Crico-thyroid muscle Strap muscle (sterno-hyoid/thyrohiyoid)

IPA Tone Transcription

Due to historical reasons, the use of numerical values for tones is quite ambiguous; this section hopes to clear this ambiguity.

  • Following the primary resource Learn Teochew’s Tones Section, we will follow that on the scale of tones from 1 to 5, the lower the number, the lower the F02
Numerical IPA Tone Markings

List of Tones

Tone Class

  • In Teochew there are 2 Tone Classes: either low3 or high4 F0
    • low means that the F0 begins low
    • high means that the F0 beings high
    • Note: after the initial onset pitch, the utterance may be modulated (either go higher or lower depending on the Tone Category)
Tone Class Starting F0 Teochew Transcription Corresponding IPA Tones Corresponding Peng’im Tones
low low 阴 33 53 213 2 1 2 3 4
high high 阳 55 35 11 5 5 6 7 8

Tone Category

  • In addition to Tone Class, each Tone can be modulated with a Tone Category (either increase or decrease F0 depending on the onset F0 or Tone Class)
IPA Tone Example Corresponding Peng’im Tones F0 Modulation English Transcription Teochew Transcription
33
55		 1
5		 Constant
 Level
 平
535
356		 2
6		 Starts in opposite Tone Class and ends in the Tone Class Rising


 上
213
11




 3
7




 If starts with low initialTone Class, F0 dips and then rises to higher Tone Class

Constant if starts with low Tone Class7		 Departing





 去
2
5		 4
8		 Constant (Glottal Stop final) Entering
 入

Combinatorial Tones

  • Each of the categories and tones combine combinatorially to yield the tone table below
Total_Tones = Number_Tone_Classes * Number_Tone_Types

Total_Tones_in_SwaTao = 2 Tone Classes * 4 Tone Types
Total_Tones_in_SwaTao = 8

Tone Classification

  • The table below reiterates the information above and maps the relationship between Tone Class and Tone Category with IPA pitch contour, Peng'im tone number, and written Chinese tone orthography
IPA Number Peng’im Tone # Tone Type (English) Tone Class (English) Tone Type (Teochew) Tone Class
(Teochew)
33 1 Low Level 阴 平
53 2 Low Rising 阴 上
213 3 Low Departing 阴 去
2 4 Low Entering 阴 入
55 5 High Level 阳 平
35 6 High Rising 阳 上
11 7 High Departing 阳 去
5 8 High Entering 阳 入

Pitch Contour

  • Below, each of the tone modulations are plotted as F0 vs. Time
  • Each line type (solid or dashed) represents a Tone Type (High or Low) while color represents a Tone Category (Level, Rising, Departing, Entering)

F0 Calculation Method

  1. Since F0 modulation occurs during the vowels rather than the short onset consonants, I extracted the Formant Listing during the vowels in a /CV/ context
  2. In Praat, I used Pitch>Pitch Listing
  3. Plotted the tones and did not truncate the length (see tones 2 and 5 are much shorter than the rest of the tones)
Pitch Contour
Tone Parameter Type Tone Parameter Graph Representation
Tone Type Low Solid Line
  High Dashed Line
Tone Category Level Blue
  Rising Red
  Departing Yellow
  Entering Green

Pitch Contour Analysis

  • Comparing Tone Type and Tone Category

Tone Type Analysis

  • With the exception of the Departing tone, all High Tone Type end higher than their Low Tone Type counterpart
  • With the exception of the Entering tone, all High Tone Type contours curve upward towards the end of the tone gesture

Tone Category Analysis

IPA Tone Example Corresponding Peng’im Tones English Transcription Findings
33
55		 1
5		 Level
 F0 seems to “settle” and hold constant after ~200 ms
535
356		 2
6		 Rising


 Tone modulation starts in the opposite Tone Type and ends in the target Tone Type
213
11




 3
7




 Departing





 Low Tone Type seems to follow the 213 modulation

High Tone Type seems to follow the opposite of Rising rather than Departing where the tone ends in the opposite Tone Type
2
5		 4
8		 Entering
 Both Tone Types contour downwards–decrease in F0 perhaps due to the final glottal adduction/glottal stop
  • It is not possible to directly draw a correlation between tone and vowel length as the contrastive tone pairs are not minimal. See Future Investigations for more details.

  1. One glottal pulse is the “round trip” of the 2 halves of the vocal folds from being blown apart by the pulmonic airstream and pulled back together by low pressure created by Bernoulli Forces ↩

  2. While working on this project, I accidentally reversed the tone markings! Seems like this happens in African vs. Asian Tone transcriptions too ↩

  3. Low is also called “Dark” or 阴 in some literature ↩

  4. High also called “Light” or 阳 in some literature ↩

  5. 53 is Low Tone Class: F0 Modulation goes from High (5) to Low(3) ↩ ↩2

  6. 35 is High Tone Class: F0 Modulation goes from Low(3) to High (5) ↩ ↩2

  7. See the Pitch Contour section for the discrepancy between the expected “constant” tone versus the recorded decrease in F0 ↩