Cantonese phonology 1

Cantonese phonology

This article is part of the series on

Cantoneselanguage

Yue Chinese

Grammar

•• Measure words•• Pronouns

Orthography

•• Cantonese Braille•• Cantonese Pinyin•• Jyutping

Phonology

•• Nasal-stop alternation•• Wikipedia IPA for Cantonese

•• v•• t• e [1]

The standard pronunciation of the Cantonese language is that of Guangzhou, also known as Canton, the capital ofGuangdong Province. Hong Kong Cantonese is related to the Guangzhou dialect, and the two diverge only slightly.Yue dialects in other parts of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, such as Taishanese, may be considered divergentto a greater degree.

Cantonese syllablesA syllable generally corresponds to a word or character. Most syllables are etymologically associated with eitherstandard Chinese characters or colloquial Cantonese characters. Modern linguists have discovered there are about1,760 syllables being used in the entire Cantonese vocabulary, which cover the pronunciations of more than 10,000Chinese characters. Therefore, the average number of homophonous characters per syllable is six. Phoneticallyspeaking, a Cantonese syllable has only two parts – the sound and the tone.[2]

Cantonese phonology 2

SoundsA Cantonese sound (or sound segment) usually consists of an initial (onset) and a final (rime). There are about 630sounds in the Cantonese syllabary.

Some of these, such as /ɛː˨/ and /ei˨/ (欸), /pʊŋ˨/ (埲), /kʷɪŋ˥/ (扃) are not common any more; some such as /kʷɪk˥/and /kʷʰɪk˥/ (隙), or /kʷaːŋ˧˥/ and /kɐŋ˧˥/ (梗) which has traditionally had two equally correct pronunciations arebeginning to be pronounced with only one particular way uniformly by its speakers (and this usually happensbecause the unused pronunciation is almost unique to that word alone) thus making the unused sounds effectivelydisappear from the language; while some such as /kʷʰɔːk˧/ (擴), /pʰuːi˥/ (胚), /tsɵy˥/ (錐), /kaː˥/ (痂) havealternative nonstandard pronunciations which have become mainstream (as /kʷʰɔːŋ˧/, /puːi˥/, /jɵy˥/ and /kʰɛː˥/respectively), again making some of the sounds disappear from the everyday use of the language; and yet others suchas /faːk˧/ (謋), /fɐŋ˩/ (揈), /tɐp˥/ (耷) have become popularly (but erroneously) believed to be made-up/borrowedwords to represent sounds in modern vernacular Cantonese when they have in fact been retaining those soundsbefore these vernacular usages became popular.On the other hand, there are new words circulating in Hong Kong which use combinations of sounds which had notappeared in Cantonese before, such as get1 (note: this is non standard usage as /ɛːt/ was never an accepted/valid finalfor sounds in Cantonese, though the final sound /ɛːt/ has appeared in vernacular Cantonese before this, /pʰɛːt˨/ -notably in describing the measure word of gooey or sticky substances such as mud, glue, chewing gum, etc.); thesound is borrowed from the English word get meaning "to understand".

Initial consonantsInitials (or onsets) refer to the 19 initial consonants which may occur at the beginning of a sound. Some sounds haveno initials and they are said to have null initial. The following is the inventory for Cantonese as represented in IPA:

Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal

plain sibilant plain labialized

Nasal m n ŋ

Plosive plain p t t͡s k kʷ ¹ (ʔ) ²

aspirated pʰ tʰ t͡sʰ kʰ kʷʰ ¹

Fricative f s h

Approximant l j ¹ w ¹

Note the aspiration contrast and the lack of voicing contrast for stops. The affricates are grouped with the stops forcompactness in the chart.1. Some linguists prefer to analyze /j/ and /w/ as part of finals to make them analogous to the /i/ and /u/ medials in

Mandarin, especially in comparative phonological studies. However, since final-heads only appear with nullinitial, /k/ or /kʰ/, analyzing them as part of the initials greatly reduces the count of finals at the cost of onlyadding four initials.

2. Some linguists analyze a /ʔ/ (glottal stop) when a vowel other than /i/, /u/ or /y/ begins a sound.The position of the coronals varies from dental to alveolar, with /t/ and /tʰ/ more likely to be dental. The position of the coronal affricates and sibilants /t͡s/, /t͡sʰ/, /s/ are usually alveolar ([t͡s], [t͡sʰ], and [s]), but can be postalveolar ([t͡ʃ], [t͡ʃʰ], and [ʃ]) or alveolo-palatal ([t͡ɕ], [t͡ɕʰ], and [ɕ]), especially before the front high vowels /iː/, /ɪ/, /yː/. Some speakers treat these as different phonemes depending on the character, e.g. 所 would be /ɕɔː˧˥/ and 鎖 would be /sɔː˧˥/, while 詩 would be /ɕiː˥/ and 思 would be /siː˥/, somewhat resembling Middle Chinese phonology. Other speakers treat the coronal variants as allophones of a single phoneme, pronouncing both 所 and 鎖 as /sɔː˧˥/ as the vowel is more open, while pronouncing both 詩 and 思 as /ɕiː˥/ as the vowel is more close. This trend is a marker

Cantonese phonology 3

of historical phonological change in Cantonese, as discussed below.Some native speakers do not distinguish between /n/ and /l/, nor between /ŋ/ and the null initial.[3] Usually theypronounce only /l/ and the null initial. See the discussion on phonological shift below.

Vowels and terminalsFinals (or rimes) are the part of the sound after the initial. A final is typically composed of a main vowel (nucleus)and a terminal (coda). There are 53 finals (including the two syllabic nasals[4]) for all the sounds of the Cantonesedialect.A main vowel can be long or short, depending on vowel length. This is the only indispensble part of a syllable. Aterminal can be a tail vowel, a nasal consonant, or a stop consonant. Finals with no terminal are called open finals.The following chart lists all possible finals in Cantonese as represented in IPA.

V aː ɛː iː ɔː uː œː yː Ø

Long Short Long Short Long Short Long Short Long Short Long Short Long Short

-i / -y aːi 街 ɐi 雞 ei 你 ɔːi 愛 uːi 會 ɵy 水

-u aːu 教 ɐu 夠 ɛːu¹ iːu 了 ou 好

-m aːm 衫 ɐm 深 ɛːm¹ iːm 點 m̩² 唔

-n aːn 山 ɐn 新 iːn 見 ɔːn 看 uːn 歡 ɵn 准 yːn 遠

-ŋ aːŋ 橫 ɐŋ 宏 ɛːŋ 鏡 ɪŋ 敬 ɔːŋ 方 ʊŋ 風 œːŋ 傷 ŋ̩² 五

-p aːp 插 ɐp 輯 ɛːp¹ iːp 接

-t aːt 達 ɐt 突 ɛːt¹ iːt 結 ɔːt 渴 uːt 沒 ɵt 出 yːt 血

-k aːk 百 ɐk 北 ɛːk 錫 ɪk 亦 ɔːk 國 ʊk 六 œːk 著

¹Finals [ɛːu], [ɛːm], [ɛːp], and [ɛːt] only appear in colloquial pronunciations of characters. They are absentfrom some analyses and romanization systems.²Syllabic nasals: [m̩] [ŋ̩]

Chart of vowels used in Cantonese

Based on the chart above, the followingpairs of vowels are usually considered to beallophones:

[ɛː] - [e], [iː] - [ɪ], [ɔː] - [o], [uː] - [ʊ],and [œː] - [ɵ].

Although that satisfies the minimal pairrequirement, some linguists find it difficultto explain why the coda affects the vowellength. They recognize the following twoallophone groups instead:

[e] - [ɪ] and [o] - [ʊ] - [ɵ].They view the main vowels /ɪ/, /ʊ/ and /ɵ/as [e̝], [o̝] and [ɵ̞].In that way, the phoneme set consists ofseven long vowels and three short vowelsthat are in contrast with three of the long vowels, as presented in the following chart:

Cantonese phonology 4

V aː ɔː ɛː iː uː œː yː Ø

Long Short Long Short Long Short Long Long Long Long

-i / -y aːi ɐi ɔːi ɵy ei uːi

-u aːu ɐu ou iːu

-m aːm ɐm iːm m̩

-n aːn ɐn ɔːn ɵn iːn uːn yːn

-ŋ aːŋ ɐŋ ɔːŋ ʊŋ ɛːŋ ɪŋ œːŋ ŋ̩

-p aːp ɐp iːp

-t aːt ɐt ɔːt ɵt iːt uːt yːt

-k aːk ɐk ɔːk ʊk ɛːk ɪk œːk

When the three checked tones are separated, the codas -p, -t and -k become allophones of the nasal codas -m, -n and-ŋ respectively, because they are in the complementary distribution in which the former three appear in the checkedtones and the latter three appear in the non-checked tones. That explains the distribution of codas well.

TonesGuangzhou Cantonese traditionally has seven tones, but Hong Kong Cantonese has six with the high-falling tonehaving merged with the high tone; current models use the latter. However, it is often said to have nine, the additionaltones in the counts being the three checked (or entering) tones. There are in addition two 'changed' or 'modified'tones used for certain morphological purposes. In Chinese, the number of possible tones depends on the rime type.There are six contour tones in rimes or finals that end in a semi-vowel or nasal consonant. (Some of these have morethan one realization, but such differences are seldom used to distinguish words.) In finals that end in a stopconsonant, the number of tones is reduced to three; in Chinese descriptions, these "checked tones" are treatedseparately, so that Cantonese is traditionally said to have nine tones. However, phonetically these are a conflation oftone and rime type; the number of phonemic tones is six in Hong Kong and seven in Guangzhou.

Cantonese phonology 5

Relative fundamental-frequency contours for six Cantonese tones with examples andJyutping/Yale tone numbers (modified from )

Syllable type Open syllables Checked syllables

Tone name dark flat(陰 平)

dark rising(陰 上)

darkdeparting(陰 去)

light flat(陽 平)

lightrising

(陽 上)

lightdeparting(陽 去)

upper darkentering

(上 陰 入)

lower darkentering

(下 陰 入)

lightentering(陽 入)

Description highlevel,high

falling

mediumrising

mediumlevel

low falling,very low

level

lowrising

low level high level medium level low level

Yale orJyutping

tone number

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (or 1) 8 (or 3) 9 (or 6)

Example 詩 史 試 時 市 是 識 錫 食

Tone letter siː˥, siː˥˧ siː˧˥ siː˧ siː˨˩, siː˩ siː˩˧ siː˨ sɪk˥ sɛːk˧ sɪk˨

IPA diacritic síː, sîː sǐː sīː si̖ː, sı̏ː si̗ː sìː sɪ́k sɛ̄ːk sɪ̀k

Yale diacritic sī, sì sí si sìh síh sih sīk sek sihk

For purposes of meters in Chinese poetry, the first and fourth tones are the "flat/level tones" (平 聲), while the restare the "oblique tones" (仄 聲). This follows their regular evolution from the four tones of Middle Chinese.The first tone can be either high level or high falling usually without affecting the meaning of the words beingspoken. Most speakers are in general not consciously aware of when they use and when to use high level and highfalling. In Hong Kong, most speakers have merged the high level and high falling tones. In Guangzhou, the highfalling tone is disappearing as well, but is still prevalent among certain words, e.g. in traditional Yale Romanizationwith diacritics, sàam (high falling) means the number three 三, whereas sāam (high level) means shirt 衫.[5]

Cantonese phonology 6

The relative pitch of the tones varies with the speaker; consequently, descriptions vary from one sources to another.The difference between high and mid level tone (1 and 3) is about twice that between mid and low level (3 and 6):60 Hz to 30 Hz. Low falling (4) starts at the same pitch as low level, but then drops; as is common with falling tones,it is shorter than the three level tones. The two rising tones, (2) and (5), both start at the level of (6), but rise to thelevel of (1) and (3), respectively.[6]

The tone 3, 4, 5 and 6 are dipping in the last syllable when is a interrogative sentence or a exclamatory sentence. 真係? is pronounced [tsăn˥ hăi̯˨˨˥].The numbers "394052786" when pronounced in Cantonese, will give the nine tones in order (Romanisation (Yale)saam1, gau2, sei3, ling4, ng5, yi6, chat7, baat8, luk9), thus giving a good mnemonic for remembering the nine tones.Like other Yue dialects, Cantonese preserves an analog to the voicing distinction of Middle Chinese in the mannershown in the chart below.

Middle Chinese Cantonese

Tone Initial Nucleus Tone Name Tone Contour Tone Number

Level voiceless dark level ˥, ˥˧ 1

voiced light level ˨˩, ˩ 4

Rising voiceless dark rising ˧˥ 2

voiced light rising ˩˧ 5

Departing voiceless dark departing ˧ 3

voiced light departing ˨ 6

Entering voiceless Short upper dark entering ˥ 7 (1)

Long lower dark entering ˧ 8 (3)

voiced light entering ˨ 9 (6)

The distinction of voiced and voiceless consonants found in Middle Chinese was preserved by the distinction oftones in Cantonese. The difference in vowel length further caused the splitting of the dark entering tone, makingCantonese (as well as other Yue Chinese branches) one of the few Chinese languages to have further split a toneafter the voicing-related splitting of the Middle Chinese four tones.[7][8]

Cantonese is special in the way that the vowel length can affect both the rime and the tone. SomelinguistsWikipedia:Avoid weasel words believe that the vowel length feature may have roots in the Old Chineselanguage.There are also two changed tones, which add the diminutive-like meaning "that familiar example" to a standardword. For example, the word for "woman" in a modified tone means "daughter". They are comparable to thediminutive suffixes 儿 and 子 of Mandarin. In addition, modified tones are used in compounds, reduplications anddirect address to family members.[9] The two modified tones are high level, like tone 1, and mid rising, like tone 2,though for some people not as high as tone 2. The high level changed tone is more common for speakers with a highfalling tone; for others, mid rising (or its variant realization) is the main changed tone, in which case it only operateson those syllables with a non-high level and non-mid rising tone (i.e. only tones 3, 4, 5 and 6 in Yale and Jyutpingromanizations may have changed tones).[10] However, in certain specific vocatives, the changed tone does indeedresult in a high level tone (tone 1), including speakers without a phonemically distinct high falling tone.[11]

Cantonese phonology 7

Historical changeLike other languages, Cantonese is constantly undergoing sound change, processes where more and more nativespeakers of a language change the pronunciations of certain sounds.One shift that affected Cantonese in the past was the loss of distinction between the alveolar and the alveolo-palatal(sometimes termed as postalveolar) sibilants, which occurred during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Thisdistinction was documented in many Cantonese dictionaries and pronunciation guides published prior to the 1950sbut is no longer distinguished in any modern Cantonese dictionary.Publications that documented this distinction include:• Williams, S., A Tonic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Canton Dialect, 1856.• Cowles, R., A Pocket Dictionary of Cantonese, 1914.• Meyer, B. and Wempe, T., The Student's Cantonese-English Dictionary, 3rd edition, 1947.• Chao, Y. Cantonese Primer, 1947.The depalatalization of sibilants caused many words that were once distinct to sound the same. For comparison, thisdistinction is still made in modern Standard Mandarin, with most alveolo-palatal sibilants in Cantonesecorresponding to the retroflex sibilants in Mandarin. For instance:

Sibilant Category Character Modern Cantonese Pre-1950s Cantonese Standard Mandarin

Unaspirated affricate 將 /tsœːŋ/ (alveolar) /tsœːŋ/ (alveolar) /tɕiɑŋ/ (alveolo-palatal)

張 /tɕœːŋ/ (alveolo-palatal) /tʂɑŋ/ (retroflex)

Aspirated affricate 槍 /tsʰœːŋ/ (alveolar) /tsʰœːŋ/ (alveolar) /tɕʰiɑŋ/ (alveolo-palatal)

昌 /tɕʰœːŋ/ (alveolo-palatal) /tʂʰɑŋ/ (retroflex)

Fricative 相 /sœːŋ/ (alveolar) /sœːŋ/ (alveolar) /ɕiɑŋ/ (alveolo-palatal)

傷 /ɕœːŋ/ (alveolo-palatal) /ʂɑŋ/ (retroflex)

Even though the aforementioned references observed the distinction, most of them also noted that thedepalatalization phenomenon was already occurring at the time. Williams (1856) writes:

The initials ch and ts are constantly confounded, and some persons are absolutely unable to detect thedifference, more frequently calling the words under ts as ch, than contrariwise.

Cowles (1914) adds:"s" initial may be heard for "sh" initial and vice versa.

A vestige of this palatalization difference is sometimes reflected in the romanization scheme used to romanizeCantonese names in Hong Kong. For instance, many names will be spelled with sh even though the "sh sound" (/ɕ/)is no longer used to pronounce the word. Examples include the surname 石 (/sɛːk˨/), which is often romanized asShek, and the names of places like Sha Tin (沙 田; /saː˥ tʰiːn˩/).After the shift was complete, even though the alveolo-palatal sibilants were no longer distinguished, they stillcontinue to occur in complementary distribution with the alveolar sibilants, making the two groups of sibilantsallophones. Thus, most modern Cantonese speakers will pronounce the alveolar sibilants unless the following vowelis /iː/, /i/, or /y/, in which case the alveolo-palatal (or postalveolar) is pronounced. Canton romanization attempts toreflect this phenomenon in its romanization scheme, even though most current Cantonese romanization schemesdon't.The alveolo-palatal sibilants occur in complementary distribution with the retroflex sibilants in Mandarin as well,with the alveolo-palatal sibilants only occurring before /i/, or /y/. However, Mandarin also retains the medials, where/i/ and /y/ can occur, as can be seen in the examples above. Cantonese had lost its medials sometime ago in itshistory, reducing the ability for speakers to distinguish its sibilant initials.

Cantonese phonology 8

In modern-day Hong Kong, many younger speakers are unable to distinguish between certain phoneme pairs andmerge one sound into another. Although that is often considered as substandard and is denounced as being "lazysounds" (懶 音), it is becoming more common and is influencing other Cantonese-speaking regions. (See HongKong Cantonese.)

References[1] http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ w/ index. php?title=Template:Cantonese_language& action=edit[2][2] While most linguists state that Syllable = Sound + Tone, a few prefer to say that Tonal Syllable = Base Syllable + Tone. For the sake of

simplicity, this article chooses to use the first equation.[3] Virginia Yip, Stephen Matthews (2001) Basic Cantonese: A Grammar and Workbook, Routledge, pages 3-4 (http:/ / books. google. co. uk/

books?id=LaGJiZnsV-8C& pg=PA3).[4][4] The nasal consonants [m] and [η] can occur as base syllables in their own right, and are thus known as syllabic nasals.[5] Caihua Guan (2000) English-Cantonese Dictionary: Cantonese in Yale Romanization. New-Asia - Yale-in-China Language Center. Compare

page 474's entry for "shirt" (http:/ / books. google. co. uk/ books?id=0T5IxdlJu44C& pg=PA474) with page 530's entry for "three" (http:/ /books. google. co. uk/ books?id=0T5IxdlJu44C& pg=PA530).

[6] Jennie Lam Suk Yin, 2003, Confusion of tones in visually-impaired children using Cantonese braille (http:/ / hub. hku. hk/ bitstream/ 10722/40646/ 1/ FullText. pdf) (Archived by WebCite® at http:/ / www. webcitation. org/ 6AK0HT0Vk)

[7] Norman, Jerry (1988) Chinese (Cambridge Language Surveys), Cambridge University Press, page 216 (http:/ / books. google. co. uk/books?id=wOPArZVCk-wC& pg=PA216)

[8] Pan-Hsing Ting, Cheng-teh James Huang (ed.), Yen-hui Audrey Li (ed.) (1996) "Chapter 4: Tonal Evolution and Tonal Reconstruction inChinese". New horizons in Chinese linguistics, Springer, page 150 (http:/ / books. google. co. uk/ books?id=pDSkChLWbnsC& pg=PA150).

[9] Stephen Matthews and Virginia Yip, Cantonese: A Comprehensive Grammar, London: Routledge 1994, sec. 1.4.2[10] Alan C. L. Yu (2007) "Understanding near mergers: the case of morphological tone change in Cantonese". Phonology 24 (2007) 187-214,

page 191. Available online; page 5. (http:/ / home. uchicago. edu/ ~aclyu/ papers/ Phonology24. pdf)[11] Alan C. L. Yu "Tonal Mapping in Cantonese Vocative Reduplication" Available online, accessed 4th November, 2011 (http:/ / home.

uchicago. edu/ ~aclyu/ papers/ BLS35. pdf)

Article Sources and Contributors 9

Article Sources and ContributorsCantonese phonology  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=597013338  Contributors: 4pq1injbok, Aeusoes1, Ajandrus, Allecher, Amir Hamzah 2008, Angr, Angry bee,BabelStone, CChiu2011, ChrisCork, ChrisGualtieri, Cnilep, Cpsoper, Echalon, Felix Wan, Fort123, Hmanck, HongQiGong, JWB, JorisvS, Kanguole, Kwamikagami, LMB, Mahmudmasri,Michael Ly, Norm mit, Obsidian Soul, Officer781, Pierebean, STSC, Serafín33, Shrigley, TAKASUGI Shinji, Talu42, Van Gulik, William Avery, 30 anonymous edits

Image Sources, Licenses and ContributorsFile:Guangzhouhua-vector.svg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Guangzhouhua-vector.svg  License: Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0  Contributors:LiliCharlieImage:Cantonese vowel chart.svg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Cantonese_vowel_chart.svg  License: Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0  Contributors:Cantonese_vowel_chart.png: Jeffrey Connell (IceKarma) IPA_vowel_trapezium.svg: Moxfyre (talk) derivative work: Moxfyre (talk)File:Cantonese tones.svg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Cantonese_tones.svg  License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike  Contributors: User:Pierebean

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