# Cantonese: Tone Sandhi



## Testing1234567

The Internet claims that Tone Sandhi is not present in Cantonese, but I think I have found an example of Tone Sandhi in Cantonese: 55->35. I wonder if it is just me who does this Sandhi or actually this Sandhi is common. One example is 乜嘢嘢(mat1 jye5 jye5) which I often pronounce as (mat jye3 jye5). I would like to ask other Cantonese natives whether this is common.


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## SuperXW

Who says tone sandhi doesn't exist in Cantonese??  It's the language with most tone sandhi I've ever known!
See Chinese Wikipedia page here:
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/變調


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## Testing1234567

In some sources it is said that changed tones ain't tone sandhi because they occur in a particular context (糖 meaning sugar is always tong4 while 糖 meaning candy is always tong2). Some sources contradict with the others?


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## SuperXW

Have you read 粵語 part in the Wikipedia page...? How are 豆 or 灣 "different" in those cases? 
They are not like 糖(candy) and 糖(sugar), which should be called 多音字, if different tones apply to different meanings.
以我經驗，粵語很多“疊字”都會變調，如乜嘢嘢，媽媽……
還有很多名詞，在詞尾的時候會變為2聲，如豆芽vs紅豆、月光vs賞月……
還有很多無規律的變調，如筲箕灣vs長沙灣, 白話vs大話……
Who ever told you "Cantonese has no tone sandhi" was wrong, or you've misunderstood the guy...


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## Testing1234567

But the reading is fixed in both 長沙灣 and 土瓜灣 unlike Mandarin where the tone changes according to position? The English Wikipedia says "It is not to be confused with tone changes that are due to derivational or inflectional morphology".


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## SuperXW

Then it used 糖 as the example.
比如你查漢語字典，一個字會有幾個意思。雖然互有關聯，起源相同，但也有細微的差別（如糖candy和糖sugar），這種情況下讀音有變，就不算“tone sandhi”。
但如果字義完全相同，且無關語氣，而某字讀音不同，就是“tone sandhi”。

普通話3聲的變調，規律較為清楚，粵語中沒有這種規律清楚的變調而已。但是事實上粵語中充滿了不規則變調……
如果硬要找規律的話，可以說：名詞結尾的字音調通常需要升高，所以造成了“乜嘢嘢”，“媽媽”，“人哋vs男人”這類變調，我感覺是因為位置而變化的。


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## YangMuye

粤语的“变调”更类似普通话的“轻声”吧。

普通话的变调完全无视意思和词汇边界，只看前后音节。


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## SuperXW

我也覺得粵語變調的無規律程度與普通話的“輕聲”和“兒化音”不相上下。
粵語變調也無視意思，但似乎是以詞為單位的。


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## Youngfun

广州话和香港话在这方面有没有区别？


SuperXW said:


> It's the language with most tone sandhi I've ever known!


Because you don't know Wu.


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## Testing1234567

其實我想知道有冇人會將乜嘢嘢(mat1je5je5)讀成(mat1je3je5)？


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## YangMuye

Youngfun said:


> Because you don't know Wu.


吴语有声调吗 已经不算tonal language了吧.


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## Youngfun

吴语不止有“三黑舞”……


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## SuperXW

Testing1234567 said:


> 其實我想知道有冇人會將乜嘢嘢(mat1je5je5)讀成(mat1je3je5)？


我覺得好明顯好多人會……你注意聽下周圍人講……
母語是粵語的人士對自己的音調已經習以為常，而且很少有系統的粵語拼音課程，所以大家沒有留意到自己的變調……但是這些音調變化對學習粵語的其他中國人來說則相當明顯。
參見維基：粵語-聲調變化
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/粤语#.E8.81.B2.E8.AA.BF.E8.AE.8A.E5.8C.96


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## Ghabi

Tone sandhi and tone change are not the same thing. The former refer to particular tonal changes in particular phonetic environments. Thus there is no tone sandhi in Cantonese, although there are many tonal changes serving different purposes (to create diminutives, for example, cf. this thread).


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## SuperXW

Well, that depends on how you define "particular tonal change" and "particular phonetic environments". To me, your "tonal change" examples totally fit the definition.

If "to create diminutives" can be a "different purpose", anything else could be, say "I have to alter the tone because I'm creating another noun, verb...Why not?" Come on, since when you must change the surname's tone to create diminutives? If that IS the purpose, why it happens to some surnames but not all? So the "purpose" is not reasonable to me at all. I just consider them as "particular phonetic environments".

I don't feel it's necessary to argue what is "particular" and how to clearly define "tone sandhi". The fact is, we don't have many choices in Chinese terminologies. The only related concepts I could think of are 变调 and 多音字. I would interpret "tonal sandhi" as 变调, and other "tonal changes" as 多音字(tone change along with character meanings). If you don't agree with this definition, how do you translate "tone sandhi" and "tone change" into Chinese terms?

Moreover, if you don't classify them as "tone sandi", now we get a bunch of "tonal changes" serving too many "different purposes" (like what Testing has suggested: 乜嘢嘢, what's the "purpose" of this change?) And you never classify them, giving them specific terms. Now both 多音字 and 变调 are all "tonal changes". What's the good for language study?


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## Ghabi

SuperXW said:


> I don't feel it's necessary to argue what is "particular" and how to clearly define "tone sandhi". The fact is, we don't have many choices in Chinese terminologies. The only related concepts I could think of are 变调 and 多音字. I would interpret "tonal sandhi" as 变调, and other "tonal changes" as 多音字(tone change along with character meanings). If you don't agree with this definition, how do you translate "tone sandhi" and "tone change" into Chinese terms?


This is not my own definition, SuperXW. This is how the term is used in linguistic works. In Chinese "tone sandhi" is translated specifically as 連續變調 or 連讀變調. It's about how the tone of a syllable is affected by that of its adjacent syllable, like a third-tone syllable changes to second-tone when followed by another third-tone syllable in Mandarin. We don't have this type of tonal changes in Cantonese, so we (okay, "they") say there's no tone sandhi in Cantonese.

In Cantonese a morpheme doesn't change its tone due to the tone of its adjacent syllable. Take the surname 陳 can4. It changes its tone in the combination 陳仔 can2zai2, but it doesn't in 陳總 can4zung2, although in both cases it is followed by a second-tone syllable (zai2, zung2). In other words, can4 changes its tone regardless of its phonetic environment. So it's not tone sandhi, which is a blind phonetic process, regardless of the meaning of the word.

The confusing thing about tonal changes in Cantonese is that, for each "purpose" (which you deride above), the tonal change doesn't apply to all morphemes. For example, 跌 dit3 can change to dit2 to indicate the perfective aspect (as in 你dit2嘢呀 "Hey, you've dropped something!"). But you can't do that to all verbs (I think when I was a kid this tonal change was used much more frequently). In other words, the process is not fully productive. And so I can understand your contempt.


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## SuperXW

I understand what you've said. So I'll clarify my statement as: 粵語存在大量「變調」，但不存在「規則的連續變調」. By saying this in Chinese, I avoid arguing the definition of "tone sandhi". 
I hope Cantonese linguists could make more effort on summarizing the changes, either regular ones or irregular ones, and promoting an unified system to educate ordinary speakers. Or it would be hard to promote or protect the culture.


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## yuechu

大家好！

I was wondering if Cantonese tones change according to their environment, like what happens sometimes in Mandarin. (for example: nǐhǎo --> níhǎo)
For example, I was listening to the word 食飯 in Cantonese today which is pronounced sIk
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 fan
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




, but the pitch level seemed to be different for the two characters, despite them being the same tone.
Does anyone know if this happens in Cantonese as well?

Thanks!


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## Ghabi

I try to explain that in post#16. The pronunciation in your clip sounds normal to me (sik6faan6), but I'm not objective since it's my native tongue.


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## yuechu

I was just looking at the Wikipedia article about 变调. It looks like there are a lot of tone changes in Cantonese which can happen independently of their environment. It is very interesting (but will perhaps make learning Cantonese very difficult)!
Thanks, Ghabi and all the others for your help! If anyone finds any more information about tone changes in Cantonese, feel free to reply to this thread!


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