Cantonese changed tones (also called pinjam; traditional Chinese: 變音; simplified Chinese: 变音; pinyin: biànyīn; Jyutping: bin3jam1, Yale: binyàm) occur when a word's tone becomes a different tone due to a particular context or meaning. The changed tone is the tone of the word when read in a particular lexical or grammatical context, while the base (or underlying) tone is usually the tone of the word when read in citation. In its most common form, it occurs on the final syllable of either a compound word, a reduplicated word, or specific examples of vocatives, especially in direct address to family members.
It usually takes the form of a non-high level, non-mid rising tone (i.e. tones 3, 4, 5, and 6 in Jyutping and Yale; see Cantonese phonology for further information on the tones in Cantonese) transforming into a mid-rising tone (tone 2); in some speakers, this changed tone is slightly lower than the citation mid-rising tone. In speakers with the high falling tone, this may also become the high level tone via the same process. In many speakers, another form of a changed tone used in specific vocatives that may also result in a high level tone (tone 1), rather than in a mid-level tone. It is distinct from tone sandhi, which are automatic modifications of tone created by their phonetic environment, without regard to meaning.
Famous quotes containing the words changed and/or tone:
“People fall out of windows, trees tumble down,
Summer is changed to winter, the young grow old
The air is full of children, statues, roofs
And snow. The theatre is spinning round,
Colliding with deaf-mute churches and optical trains.
The most massive sopranos are singing songs of scales.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“There was about all the Romans a heroic tone peculiar to ancient life. Their virtues were great and noble, and these virtues made them great and noble. They possessed a natural majesty that was not put on and taken off at pleasure, as was that of certain eastern monarchs when they put on or took off their garments of Tyrian dye. It is hoped that this is not wholly lost from the world, although the sense of earthly vanity inculcated by Christianity may have swallowed it up in humility.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)