Editing Tone (linguistics) (section)

==Tonal change==

===Tone terracing===
{{main|Tone terracing}}
Tones are realized as pitch only in a relative sense. "High tone" and "low tone" are only meaningful relative to the speaker's vocal range and in comparing one syllable to the next, rather than as a contrast of absolute pitch such as one finds in music. As a result, when one combines tone with sentence [[prosody (linguistics)|prosody]], the absolute pitch of a high tone at the end of a [[prosodic unit]] may be lower than that of a low tone at the beginning of the unit, because of the universal tendency (in both tonal and non-tonal languages) for pitch to decrease with time in a process called [[downdrift]].

Tones may affect each other just as consonants and vowels do. In many register-tone languages, low tones may cause a [[downstep]] in following high or mid tones; the effect is such that even while the low tones remain at the lower end of the speaker's vocal range (which is itself descending due to downdrift), the high tones drop incrementally like steps in a stairway or [[Terrace (agriculture)|terraced]] rice fields, until finally the tones merge and the system has to be reset. This effect is called [[tone terracing]].

Sometimes a tone may remain as the sole realization of a grammatical particle after the original consonant and vowel disappear, so it can only be heard by its effect on other tones. It may cause downstep, or it may combine with other tones to form contours. These are called [[floating tone]]s.

===Tone sandhi===
{{Main|Tone sandhi}}
In many contour-tone languages, one tone may affect the shape of an adjacent tone. The affected tone may become something new, a tone that only occurs in such situations, or it may be changed into a different existing tone. This is called tone sandhi. In Mandarin Chinese, for example, a dipping tone between two other tones is reduced to a simple low tone, which otherwise does not occur in Mandarin Chinese, whereas if two dipping tones occur in a row, the first becomes a rising tone, indistinguishable from other rising tones in the language. For example, the words 很 {{IPA|[xɤn˨˩˦]}} ('very') and 好 {{IPA|[xaʊ˨˩˦]}} ('good') produce the phrase 很好 {{IPA|[xɤn˧˥ xaʊ˨˩˦]}} ('very good'). The two transcriptions may be conflated with reversed tone letters as {{IPA|[xɤn˨˩˦꜔꜒xaʊ˨˩˦]}}.

====Right- and left-dominant sandhi====
Tone sandhi in [[Varieties of Chinese|Sinitic languages]] can be classified with a left-dominant or right-dominant system. In a language of the right-dominant system, the right-most syllable of a word retains its citation tone (i.e., the tone in its isolation form). All the other syllables of the word must take their sandhi form.<ref name="Zhang 2007 pp. 259–302">{{cite journal | last=Zhang | first=Jie | title=A directional asymmetry in Chinese tone sandhi systems | journal=Journal of East Asian Linguistics | publisher=Springer Science and Business Media LLC | volume=16 | issue=4 | date=2007-08-23 | issn=0925-8558 | doi=10.1007/s10831-007-9016-2 | pages=259–302| s2cid=2850414 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal| issn = 1836-6821| last = Rose| first = Phil| title = Complexities of tonal realisation in a right-dominant Chinese Wu dialect - disyllabic tone sandhi in a speaker form Wencheng| journal = Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society |volume=9 |pages=48-80| accessdate = 2023-07-22| date = March 2016| url = https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/99985}}</ref> [[Taiwanese Hokkien|Taiwanese Southern Min]] is known for its complex sandhi system. Example: 鹹kiam<sup>5</sup> 'salty'; 酸sng<sup>1</sup> 'sour'; 甜tinn<sup>1</sup> 'sweet'; 鹹酸甜kiam<sub>7</sub> sng<sub>7</sub> tinn<sup>1</sup> 'candied fruit'. In this example, only the last syllable remains unchanged. Subscripted numbers represent the changed tone.

===Tone change===
'''Tone change''' must be distinguished from '''tone sandhi'''. [[Tone sandhi]] is a compulsory change that occurs when certain tones are juxtaposed. Tone change, however, is a morphologically conditioned [[alternation (linguistics)|alternation]] and is used as an inflectional or a derivational strategy.<ref name="Chen2004" /> Lien indicated that causative verbs in modern [[Southern Min]] are expressed with tonal alternation, and that tonal alternation may come from earlier affixes. Examples: 長 tng<sup>5</sup> 'long' vs. tng<sup>2</sup> 'grow'; 斷 tng<sup>7</sup> 'break' vs. tng<sup>2</sup> 'cause to break'.<ref>{{Cite journal| volume = 29 | number = 4 | last = Lien| first = Chin-fa| title = A Typological Study of Causatives in Taiwanese Southern Min| journal = Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies| year = 1999 | pages = 395–422 }}  Lien, Chin-fa (連金發). (1999). A Typological Study of Causatives in Taiwanese Southern Min [台灣閩南語使動式的類型研究]. ''The Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies, 29''(4), 395-422.</ref> Also, 毒 in [[Taiwanese Hokkien|Taiwanese Southern Min]] has two pronunciations: to̍k (entering tone) means 'poison' or 'poisonous', while thāu (departing tone) means 'to kill with poison'.<ref>[https://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/default.jsp 教育部臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210507124345/https://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/default.jsp |date=2021-05-07  }}. Ministry of Education, Taiwan. Retrieved 11 June 2019.</ref> The same usage can be found in Min, Yue, and Hakka.<ref>{{cite thesis |last=吳 |first=瑞文 |date=2005-09-18 |title=吳閩方言音韻比較研究 (Wú mǐn fāngyán yīnyùn bǐjiào yánjiū {{!}} A Comparative Study on the Phonology of Wu and Min Dialects) |degree=PhD |pages=46, 65 |publisher=National Chengchi University |url=http://nccur.lib.nccu.edu.tw/handle/140.119/35579 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200809142454/http://nccur.lib.nccu.edu.tw/handle/140.119/35579 |archive-date=2020-08-09 |language=zh |via=NCCU Institutional Repository}}</ref>