# 2nd and 4th tones in two consequetive vowels



## Konstantinos

Hi all. I want to ask you some questions about the second and fourth tones in two consequetive vowels.

áo = aó
ào = aò

Are these two equations correct?

An example:
豪华：this word is pronounced háo huá. Can we say that it is pronounced haó húa? 

I am trying to understand how much phonetic is the pinyin.

Thanks in advance.


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## hx1997

Of all the letters in the pinyin of a specific character, the tone mark should be placed on the one that comes first in the sequence "a, o, e, i, u, ü". The only exception is _iu_, which should have the mark placed on _u_.

_ao_: _a_ comes first, so put the mark on it.
_hua_: _a_ comes first, so put the mark on it.
Placing the mark on other positions is wrong.

(Does the HSK coursebook not mention this? It seems like Chinese 101 to me.  )


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## yuechu

Hi, Konstantinos!

There are rules for which vowel to write the tone mark on in pinyin. I just searched and found "If there are two or more vowels in the Pinyin, you should place the tone mark in the order of "a, o, e, i, u, ü""

"áo" and "ào" are correct, but not "aó" and "aò."

Hope this helps! 

EDIT: crossposted with hx1997


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## ktdd

Konstantinos said:


> áo = aó
> ào = aò
> 
> Are these two equations correct?


No.


Konstantinos said:


> 豪华：this word is pronounced háo huá. Can we say that it is pronounced haó húa?


And No.

Chinese syllable structure looks like this:




Note that there is only one element that is non-optional: the nucleus.
It is the loudest central vowel. The tone mark always falls on the nucleus (with the exception 'ui', which is a shorthand for 'uei').
The nucleus can be preceded by a glide (/j/, /w/, /ɥ/). It can also be followed by a glide (/i̯/, /u̯/).

In 'hao', 'a' (/a/) is the nucleus, 'o' (/u̯/) is the coda. So it is 'a' that carries the tone mark.
In 'hua', 'u' (/w/) is the medial, 'a' (/a/) is the nucleus. So again it is 'a' that carries the tone mark.


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## Konstantinos

Thank you all for your answers. Now its clearer to me.

Let's suppose we have 4 variants: ào, áo, oà and oá in pinyin. If we consider a new tonic system that has only one tone (the 2nd) which defines which vowel to be stressed (to be pronounced more loudly), can we say the followings: ?

ào = áo
áo = aó
oà = óa
oá = oá

Simply said, the 2nd and 4th tones in two consecutive vowels tells us whether the right or the left vowel should be pronounced more loudly.

What is your opinion?


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## hx1997

Hmm, sorry but am I missing something? Are you thinking there could be two possible pronunciations for _ao_, one being stressed on _a_ and the other on _o_? Almost all Chinese characters are monosyllabic. With only one syllable, how can you have different possible stresses? _ao_ is a diphthong, and there is no _oa_ in pinyin.

Edit: Or are you trying to invent a new language, like ktdd suggested?


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## ktdd

What is your point? Are you inventing a conlang that has only one tone? If there is only one tone, what is the point of a tonal system?

If it's non-tonal, natural language, Italian has triphthongs such as 'buoi', and they're doing just fine without any additional marks to indicate the nucleus.


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## Konstantinos

I try to understand whether Chinese language is really 4-tone language and pinyin is 100% phonetic or there could be a more objective, realistic and phonetic way to represent it.

At least in diphthongs, it looks like that there is no need for both 2nd and 4th.


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## hx1997

Well, maybe someone who knows phonetics will be able to help. But for me, ào and áo are totally different, and the tones have nothing to do with stress or loudness (at least in a single word).


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## ktdd

Konstantinos said:


> At least in diphthongs, it looks like that there is no need for both 2nd and 4th.


Why? Huá (滑) and huà (畫) are two different syllables. Ditto háo (毫) and hào (耗).
You think the so-called "rising diphthong" equals a rising tone and "falling diphthong" equals a falling tone?
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Tones have nothing to do with stress or loudness (to quote hx1997).


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## Konstantinos

ktdd, about your examples:

滑: huA
畫: hUa
毫: haO
耗: hAo

Why not just one tone?

Edited...


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## ktdd

滑 = huÁ
畫 = huÀ
毫 = hÁo
耗 = hÀo
In the diphthong 'ua' /wa/, /a/ is always the loudest, no matter what tone.
In the diphthong 'ao' /au̯/, /a/ is always the loudest, no matter what tone.
What is rising in a rising tone is the pitch or frequency, nothing to to with loudness.
What is falling in a falling tone is the pitch or frequency, nothing to do with loudness.
Get it?

By your logic, a diphthong is either 2nd tone or 4th tone, there is no way for a diphthong to have 1st tone or 3rd tone. Is that what you mean?
I repeat. Tones have nothing to do with stress or loudness.

Take the English word 'why' /waɪ/ for example, don't tell me there is only one way to enunciate that syllable.
A rising intonation corresponds to the rising tone in Mandarin.
A falling intonation corresponds to the falling tone in Mandarin.
It's just that every Mandarin syllable has its own intonation called tone. On top of that, a phrase or a sentence can also has its intonation like any other language.

And you haven't encountered other Chinese languages yet.
There is only one level tone in Mandarin, but there are three level tones in Cantonese.
High level ˥, mid level ˧, and low level ˨ are three completely different tones. What matters is the pitch.


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## Konstantinos

Yes for example, with my logic a3 could be aa.

Maybe I am not right about my assumptions except one: There could be something better than the 4-tone pinyin.


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## ktdd

Just tell me this: Is there only one way (falling) to say the word 'why' in English?


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## Konstantinos

Actually why has 3 vowels: u, a, i.

I can pronounce all the combinations of tones: 'uai, u'ai and ua'i but only the second one is correct.


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## ktdd

Then I have nothing more to say to you.


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## SuperXW

Konstantinos said:


> If we consider a new tonic system that has only one tone (the 2nd) which defines which vowel to be stressed (to be pronounced more loudly), can we say the followings: ?
> 
> Simply said, the 2nd and 4th tones in two consecutive vowels tells us whether the right or the left vowel should be pronounced more loudly.


If you are learning music notes or singing a song, I'm sure that you won't agree with yourself.
Check the term "glissando", which is the same to tones in Chinese, and it is obviously "pitch" has nothing to do with "loudness".


Konstantinos said:


> Actually why has 3 vowels: u, a, i.
> 
> I can pronounce all the combinations of tones: 'uai, u'ai and ua'i but only the second one is correct.


I don't think it make any sense. You can ask it in English forum.


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## hx1997

Konstantinos said:


> There could be something better than the 4-tone pinyin.


It's not pinyin that has 4 tones, it's Mandarin. The tone marks in pinyin only serve to reflect the Mandarin phonology. You can create different ways to indicate tones as you like, for example huA for hua2, and hUa for hua4, thus saving the need for diacritics, but that doesn't change the fact that in Mandarin there are 4 tones. In fact, there _are _other romanization systems for Mandarin which use not diacritics but spelling variations to show tones, such as 国语罗马字 . But there are still 4 tones.

(Just curious, are you using another language as a reference in understanding tones in Mandarin, which is a tonal language? For example, modern Greek, which is a stress-accent language?)



Konstantinos said:


> I can pronounce all the combinations of tones


I don't think English words have tones... To quote from Wikipedia (some parts marked in bold by me):


> Tone is the use of *pitch *in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, *to distinguish *or to inflect *words*. *All verbal languages *use pitch *to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emphasis*, contrast and other such features in what is called intonation, *but not all languages use tones to distinguish words *or their inflections, [...]. Languages that have this feature are called *tonal languages*[.]


In English, the change of pitch can't turn one word into another. But in Mandarin (and other Chinese languages), it can.


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