General Chinese - Onsets and Rhymes - Tones

Tones

The basic spelling is used for the even 平 tone(s). For the rising 上 tone(s), the nucleus is doubled (with the vowel ⟨iu⟩ → ⟨iuu⟩, as that is treated as medial ⟨i⟩ + nucleus ⟨u⟩), or the coda is changed to a 'lighter' letter. For the going 去 tone(s), the coda is made 'heavier'; if there is no coda, add ⟨h⟩. For the entering 入 tone(s), a stop coda is used.

'Lighter' means that a vowel coda is made more open (⟨i⟩ → ⟨e⟩, ⟨u⟩ → ⟨o⟩); 'heavier' means that a vowel coda is made more close (⟨i⟩ → ⟨y⟩, ⟨u⟩ → ⟨w⟩) and a nasal coda (⟨n⟩, ⟨m⟩) is doubled. The nasal ⟨ng⟩ is 'lightened' to ⟨g⟩ (as in many Polynesian languages) and made heavier as ⟨q⟩ (as in the GC initial):

One consequence of this is that the rimes -e and -ei in the even tone conflate to ⟨ee⟩ in the rising tone. However, since there are no such syllables which begin with the same consonant and medial, no syllables are actually conflated.

The difference between yin and yang tones is indicated by the voicing of the consonant. A zero consonant is treated as voiceless (it is sometimes reconstructed as a glottal stop), so i, iem, uon, iuan are ping yin (Mandarin yī, yān, wān, yuān), whereas yi, yem, won, yuan are ping yang (Mandarin yí, yán, wán, yuán). In a few cases, the effect that voiced ⟨m⟩, ⟨n⟩, ⟨l⟩, ⟨r⟩ have on tone needs to be negated to achieve a ping yin tone. This is accomplished by spelling them ⟨mh⟩, ⟨nh⟩, ⟨lh⟩, ⟨rh⟩.

To mark the toneless Mandarin syllable ma, a centered dot is used: ⟨·ma⟩. The dot is omitted for toneless ⟨me, de, te, ne, le⟩, as tonic me, de, te, ne, le do not exist.