Tone
Dialects are classified as North Gyeongsang or South Gyeongsang based on pitch accent. North Gyeongsang has high tone, low tone (short vowel), and low tone (long vowel), whereas South Gyeongsang has high, mid, and low tone. For example, South Gyeongsang distinguishes sóni 'guest', sōni 'hand', and sòni 'grandchild'. Pitch accent plays a grammatical role as well, for example distinguishing causative and passive as in jép-pida 'make s.o. catch' and jepída 'be caught'.
In North Gyeongsang, any syllable may have pitch accent in the form of a high tone, as may the two initial syllables. For example, in trisyllabic words, there are four possible tone patterns:
- 메누리 ('daughter-in-law')
- 어무이 ('mother')
- 원어민 ('native speaker')
- 오래비 ('elder brother')
Read more about this topic: Gyeongsang Dialect
Famous quotes containing the word tone:
“Genius resembles a bell; in order to ring it must be suspended into pure air, and when a foreign body touches it, its joyful tone is silenced.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Boswell, when he speaks of his Life of Johnson, calls it my magnum opus, but it may more properly be called his opera, for it is truly a composition founded on a true story, in which there is a hero with a number of subordinate characters, and an alternate succession of recitative and airs of various tone and effect, all however in delightful animation.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)
“He doesn’t know a damn thing about China ... That’s what makes him an expert. He knows nothing about music, being tone deaf. That’s what makes him a musician ... And he’s batty in the head. That’s what makes him a philosopher.”
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)