| L: | the tone of character 'entering' tone |
| P: | rùshēng |
| W: | ju4-shêng1 |
| J: | jap6 sing1 |
| Y: | yahpsīng |
| Poj: | ji̍p-siaⁿ |
| L2: | the hurried tone |
| P2: | cùshēng |
| W2: | ts'u4-shêng1 |
| J2: | cuk1 sing1 |
| Y2: | chūksīng |
A checked tone, commonly known by the Chinese calque entering tone, is one of the four syllable types in the phonology of Middle Chinese. Although usually translated as "tone", a checked tone is not a tone in the phonetic sense but rather a type of syllable that ends in a stop consonant or a glottal stop. Separating the checked tone allows -p, -t, and -k to be treated as allophones of -m, -n, and -ng, respectively, since they are in complementary distribution. Stops appear only in the checked tone, and nasals appear only in the other tones. Because of the origin of tone in Chinese, the number of tones found in such syllables is smaller than the number of tones in other syllables. Chinese phonetics have traditionally counted them separately.
Final voiceless stops and therefore the checked "tones" have disappeared from most Mandarin dialects, spoken in northern and southwestern China, but have been preserved in southeastern Chinese branches like Yue, Min, and Hakka.
Tones are an indispensable part of Chinese literature, as characters in poetry and prose were chosen according to tones and rhymes for their euphony. This use of language helps reconstructing Old Chinese and Middle Chinese pronunciations since Chinese writing system is logographic, rather than phonetic.
From a phonetic perspective, the prototypical entering tone is simply a syllable ending with a voiceless stop that has no audible release: pronounced as /[p̚], [t̚],/ pronounced as /[k̚]/, and/or a glottal stop pronounced as /[ʔ̚]/ depending on the language variety. Middle Chinese has only the first three.
It is customarily called a tone regardless of whether a tonal distinction is possible in such syllables. In languages such as Early Middle Chinese and most varieties of Wu, such syllables do not have contrastive tones (i.e. the tone or pitch of the syllable is entirely predictable) and are therefore phonologically toneless. In languages such as Cantonese or Hakka, a small number of tonal distinctions exist (typically 2), which historically developed as a substitute for the lost Middle Chinese initial voicing.
Some Chinese varieties have innovated new final consonants from such historical syllables. A few dialects of Gan have pronounced as /[l]/ (from historical pronounced as /[t̚]/). In some dialects of Cantonese and Gan, the final stop is voiced.
The voiceless stops that typify the entering tone date back to the Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the parent language of Chinese as well as the Tibeto-Burman languages. In addition, Old Chinese is commonly thought to have syllables ending in clusters pronounced as //ps//, pronounced as //ts//, and pronounced as //ks//[1] [2] (sometimes called the "long entering tone" while syllables ending in pronounced as //p//, pronounced as //t// and pronounced as //k// are the "short entering tone"). Such clusters were later reduced to /s/, which, in turn, became pronounced as //h// and ultimately "departing tone" in Middle Chinese.
The first Chinese philologists began to describe the phonology of Chinese during the Early Middle Chinese period (specifically, during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, between 400 and 600 AD), under the influence of Buddhism and the Sanskrit language that arrived along with it. There were several unsuccessful attempts to classify the tones of Chinese before the establishment of the traditional four-tone description between 483 and 493. It is based on the Vedic theory of three intonations . The middle intonation, , maps to the "level tone" ; the upwards intonation, , to the "rising tone" ; the downward intonation, , to the "departing tone" . The distinctive sound of syllables ending with a stop did not fit the three intonations and was categorised as the "entering tone", thus forming the four-tone system.[3] The use of this system flourished in the Sui and Tang dynasties (7th–10th centuries), during which the Qieyun (Chinese: t=切韻) rime dictionary was written.
Note that modern linguistic descriptions of Middle Chinese often refer to the level, rising and departing tones as tones 1, 2 and 3, respectively.
By the time of the Mongol invasion (the Yuan dynasty, 1279–1368), the former final stops had been reduced to a glottal stop pronounced as //ʔ// in Old Mandarin. The Zhongyuan Yinyun, a rime book of 1324, already shows signs of glottal stop disappearing and the modern Mandarin tone system emerging in its place.[4] The precise time at which the loss occurred is unknown though it was likely gone by the time of the Qing Dynasty, in the 17th century.
| Chinese character | Fanqie spelling and Middle Chinese reconstruction[5] | Modern varieties of Chinese having entering tone | Sino-Xenic pronunciations | Standard Mandarin (no entering tone) | Gloss | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hakka | Hokkien | Jianghuai Mandarin(Nanjing dialect) | Wu(Ningbo dialect) | Cantonese | Classical Japanese | Korean | Vietnamese | |||||
| Chinese: 侯閤切 pronounced as /[ɣɒp]/ | pronounced as /[hap˥]/ | pronounced as /[hɐʔ˥]/ | ho⁵ pronounced as /[xoʔ˥]/ [6] | [{{IPA|ɦɐʔ˩˨}}] | pronounced as /[hɐp˨]/ | Japanese: ガフ| gapu, Japanese: カフ| kapu | Korean: 합 hap | hợp / hạp | pronounced as /xɤ̌/ | 'union', 'close' | ||
| Chinese: 是執切 pronounced as /[ʑĭĕp]/ | pronounced as /[sip˥]/ | pronounced as /[sip˥]/, pronounced as /[tsap˥]/ | shr⁵ pronounced as /[ʂʅʔ˥]/ | [{{IPA|zʷœʔ˩˨}}] | pronounced as /[sɐp˨]/ | Japanese: ジフ| zipu, Japanese: シフ| sipu | Korean: 십 sip | thập | pronounced as /ʂɨ̌/ | 'ten' | ||
| Chinese: 符弗切 pronounced as /[bʰĭuət]/ | pronounced as /[fut˥]/ | pronounced as /[hut˥]/, pronounced as /[put˥]/ | fu⁵ pronounced as /[fuʔ˥]/ | [{{IPA|vɐʔ˩˨}}] | pronounced as /[fɐt˨]/ | Japanese: ブツ| butu, Japanese: フツ| putu | Korean: 불 bul | phật | pronounced as /fuɔ̌/ | 'Buddha' | ||
| Chinese: 博拔切 pronounced as /[pæt]/ | pronounced as /[pat˩]/ | pronounced as /[pat˩]/, pronounced as /[peʔ˩]/ | ba⁵ pronounced as /[paʔ˥]/ | [{{IPA|pɐʔ˥}}] | pronounced as /[paːt˧]/ | Japanese: ハチ| pati, Japanese: ハツ| patu | Korean: 팔 pal | bát | pronounced as /pá/ | 'eight' | ||
| Chinese: 羊益切 pronounced as /[jĭɛk]/ | pronounced as /[ji˥˧]/, pronounced as /[jit˥]/ | pronounced as /[ek˥]/, pronounced as /[iaʔ˥]/ | i⁵ pronounced as /[iʔ˥]/ | [{{IPA|ji˦}}], [{{IPA|jeʔ˩˨}}] | pronounced as /[jɪk˨]/ | Japanese: ヤク| yaku, Japanese: エキ| eki | Korean: 역 yeok | dịch | pronounced as /î/ | 'change', 'exchange' | ||
| Chinese: 苦格切 pronounced as /[kʰɐk]/ | pronounced as /[hak˩]/,pronounced as /[kʰak˩]/ | pronounced as /[kʰek]/, pronounced as /[kʰeʔ˩]/ | kä⁵ pronounced as /[kʰɛʔ˥]/ | [{{IPA|kʰɐʔ˥}}] | pronounced as /[haːk˧]/ | Japanese: キャク| kyaku, Japanese: カク| kaku | Korean: 객 gaek | khách | kè pronounced as /kʰɤ̂/ | 'guest' | ||
The entering tone is extant in Jianghuai Mandarin and Minjiang Sichuanese. Other dialects have lost the entering tone, and syllables that had the tone have been distributed into the four modern tonal categories, depending on their initial consonants.
The Beijing dialect that forms the basis of Standard Mandarin redistributed syllables beginning with originally unvoiced consonants across the four tones in a completely random pattern. For example, the three characters, all pronounced pronounced as //tsjek// in Middle Chinese (William Baxter's reconstruction), are now pronounced Chinese: jī jǐ jì, with tones 1, 3 and 4 respectively. The two characters Chinese: 割／葛, both pronounced pronounced as //kat//, are now pronounced Chinese: gē and Chinese: gé/gě respectively, with the character Chinese: 葛 splitting on semantic grounds (tone 3 when it is used as a component of a name, mostly tone 2 otherwise).
Similarly, the three characters Chinese: 胳阁各 (MC pronounced as //kak//) are now pronounced Chinese: gē gé gè. The four characters Chinese: 鸽蛤颌合 (MC pronounced as //kop//) are now pronounced Chinese: gē gé gé gě.
In those cases, the two sets of characters are significant in that each member of the same set has the same phonetic component, suggesting that the phonetic component of a character has little to do with the tone class that the character is assigned to.
In other situations, however, the opposite appears to be the case. For example, the group of six homophones, all pronounced as //pjuwk// in Middle Chinese and divided into a group of four with one phonetic and a group of two with a different phonetic, splits so that the first group of four is all pronounced Chinese: fú and the second group of two is pronounced Chinese: fù. Situations like this may result from the fact that only one of the characters in each group normally occurs in speech with an identifiable tone, and as a result, a "literary pronunciation" of the other characters was constructed based on the phonetic element of that character.
The chart below summarizes the distribution in the different dialects.
| Mandarin dialect | Voiceless | nasal or /l/ | Voiced obstruent | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peninsular / Jiao-Liao | 3 | 4 | 2 | |
| Northeastern | 1, 2, 3, 4 (mostly 3, irregular) | 4 | 2 | |
| Beijing | 1, 2, 3, 4 (no obvious pattern) | 4 | 2 | |
| North-Central / Ji-Lu | 1 | 4 | 2 | |
| Central Plains | 1 | 2 | ||
| Northwestern / Lan-Yin | 4 | 2 | ||
| Southwestern | 2 (mainly), 1, 4 or preserved (Minjiang dialect) | |||
| Yangtze/Jianghuai | entering tone preserved | |||
There are several conditions that can be used to determine if a character historically had a checked tone in Middle Chinese based on its current reading in Modern Standard Mandarin. However, there are many characters, such as,,, and which do not satisfy any of these conditions at all.
| Initial | Final | Tone | Exceptions | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tenuis obstruent: ㄅ、ㄉ、ㄍ、ㄐ、ㄓ、ㄗ (b, d, g, j, zh, z) | Non-nasal final | Second tone | ||
| Alveolar consonant: ㄉ、ㄊ、ㄋ、ㄌ、ㄗ、ㄘ、ㄙ (d, t, n, l, z, c, s)or ㄖ (r) | ㄜ (e) | (any) | （~）、 | |
| Velar consonant: ㄍ、ㄎ、ㄏ (g、k、h) Retroflex consonant：ㄓ、ㄔ、ㄕ、ㄖ (zh, ch, sh, r) | ㄨㄛ (uo) | (any) | 咼（渦、堝、過、鍋、禍） 果（猓、粿、裹、蜾、輠、餜、夥） （~）、 | |
| Bilabial consonant: ㄅ、ㄆ、ㄇ (b, p, m) Alveolar non-sibilant consonant: ㄉ、ㄊ、ㄋ、ㄌ (d, t, n, l) | ㄧㄝ (ie) | (any) | ||
| Non-labial tenuis obstruent: ㄉ、ㄍ、ㄗ (d, g,z) Non-labial fricative: ㄏ、ㄙ (h, s) | ㄟ (ei) | (any) | ||
| ㄈ (f) | ㄚ、ㄛ (a,o) | (any) | ||
| Alveolar sibilant：ㄗ、ㄘ、ㄙ (z, c, s) | ㄚ (a) | (any) | ||
| (any) | ㄩㄝ (üe) | (any) | 's variant reading of, |
Most varieties of Wu Chinese preserve the entering tone. However, no contemporary Wu varieties preserve the pronounced as //p//, pronounced as //t// or pronounced as //k// distinction, but instead merges them all into a glottal stop pronounced as //ʔ//. For example, in Shanghainese, the three lexemes,,, historically ending in pronounced as //p//, pronounced as //t// and pronounced as //k//, all end in a glottal stop, and are pronounced pronounced as //səʔ⁵⁵//.
In some modern Wu varieties such as Wenzhounese, even the glottal stop has disappeared, and the entering tone is preserved as separate tone, with a falling-rising contour, making it unequivocally a phonemic tone in modern linguistics.[8]
The pitch of the entering tones are divided into two registers, depending on the initials:
Many terms with grammatical functions also undergo sporadic evolution and gain a checked tone. This process can be considered a form of lenition, and is sometimes considered a form of glottalization.[9] [10]
| Term | Gloss | Wu | Non-Wu | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xining | |||||||||||||||||
| diminuitive | aq⁷ pronounced as //aʔ꜆// | aeq⁷ pronounced as //aʔ꜆// | aq⁷ pronounced as //ɐʔ꜆// | eq⁷ pronounced as //əʔ꜆// | aeq⁷ pronounced as //æʔ꜆// | aq⁷ pronounced as //aʔ꜆// | aq⁷ pronounced as //aʔ꜆// | aq⁷ pronounced as //ɑʔ꜆// | aq⁷ pronounced as //aʔ꜆// | aq⁷ pronounced as //ɑʔ꜆// | a pronounced as //a// | aa³ pronounced as //a꜄// | pronounced as //꜀ŋa// | pronounced as //꜀a// | |||
| possessive | gheq⁸ pronounced as //ɦəʔ꜇// | keq⁷ pronounced as //kəʔ꜆// | goq⁸ pronounced as //ɡoʔ꜇// | keq⁷ pronounced as //kəʔ꜆// | geq⁸ pronounced as //ɡəʔ꜇// | geq⁸ pronounced as //ɡəʔ꜇// | keq⁷ pronounced as //kəʔ꜆// | keq⁷ pronounced as //kəʔ꜆// | koq⁷ pronounced as //koʔ꜆// | koq⁷ pronounced as //koʔ꜆// | gè pronounced as //kɤ꜄// | ko³ pronounced as //kɔ꜄// | pronounced as //ko꜄// | pronounced as //kɔ꜄// | |||
Romanization used is Wugniu. This phenomenon can also be seen in many pronouns, such as Shanghainese aq-la ("we") and Yuyaonese ⁸geq-laq₈ ("they").
In general, Cantonese preserves the Middle Chinese finals intact, including the differentiation between -p, -t and -k final consonants. Standard Cantonese does not use any glottal stops as final consonants.
There are a few isolated cases where the final consonant has changed as a result of final dissimilation, but they remain in the checked tone.[11]
| Chinese character | Middle Chinese (Baxter) | Standard Cantonese (Jyutping) | Hakka (PFS) | Sino-Korean | Sino-Vietnamese | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese: 法|size=115% | pjop | faat3 | fap | Korean: 법 (beop) | pháp | |
| Chinese: 乏|size=115% | bjop | fat6 | fa̍t | Korean: 핍 (pip) | phạp |
Like most other Chinese variants, Cantonese has changed initial voiced stops, affricates and fricatives of Middle Chinese to their voiceless counterparts. To compensate for losing that difference, Cantonese has split each Middle Chinese tones into two, one for Middle Chinese voiced initial consonants (light) and one for Middle Chinese voiceless initial consonants (dark). In addition, Cantonese has split the dark-entering tone into two, with a higher tone for short vowels and a lower tone for long vowels. As a result, Cantonese now has three entering tones:[12]
Some variants of Yue Chinese, notably including that of Bobai County (Chinese: c=博白|p=Bóbái) in Guangxi and Yangjiang (Chinese: s=阳江|t=陽江 |p=Yángjiāng |cy=Yèuhnggōng|labels=yes) in Guangdong,[13] have four entering tones: the lower light tone is also differentiated according to vowel length, short vowels for upper light and long vowels for lower light. Thus in such varieties:
| Chinese character | Middle Chinese (Baxter) | Standard Cantonese (Jyutping) | Vowel length in standard Cantonese | Bobai dialect (IPA)[14] | Sino-Vietnamese |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese: 北|size=115% | pok | bak1 | short | pronounced as //paʔ55// | bắc |
| Chinese: 百|size=115% | paek | baak3 | long | pronounced as //pak33// | bách |
| Chinese: 薄|size=115% | bak | bok6 | short | pronounced as //pɔk22// | bạc |
| Chinese: 白|size=115% | baek | baak6 | long | pronounced as //pak22// | bạch |
| Chinese: 竹|size=115% | tsyowk | zuk1 | short (the final -uk /ʊk̚/ does not distinguish long from short) | pronounced as //tʃuk55// | trúc |
| Chinese: 捉|size=115% | tsraewk | zuk3, zuk1 | pronounced as //tʃɔk33// | tróc | |
| Chinese: 鐲|size=115% | dzyowk, draewk | zuk6 | pronounced as //tʃɔk22// | trạc | |
| Chinese: 濁|size=115% | draewk | zuk6 | pronounced as //tʃɔk11// | trọc |
Hakka preserves all Middle Chinese entering tones and is split into two registers. Meixian Hakka dialect often taken as the paradigm gives the following:
Middle Chinese entering tone syllables ending in pronounced as /[k]/ whose vowel clusters have become front high vowels like pronounced as /[i]/ and pronounced as /[ɛ]/ shifts to syllables with pronounced as /[t]/ finals in some of the modern Hakka,[15] as seen in the following table.
| Character | Guangyun fanqie | Middle Chinese reconstruction | Hakka Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese: 職 | Chinese: 之翼切 | pronounced as /tɕĭək/ | pronounced as /tsit˩/ | vocation, profession | |
| 力 | Chinese: 林直切 | pronounced as /lĭək/ | pronounced as /lit˥/ | strength, power | |
| 食 | Chinese: 乗力切 | pronounced as /dʑʰĭək/ | pronounced as /sit˥/ | eat, consume | |
| 色 | Chinese: 所力切 | pronounced as /ʃĭək/ | pronounced as /sɛt˩/ | colour, hue | |
| 德 | Chinese: 多則切 | pronounced as /tək/ | pronounced as /tɛt˩/ | virtue | |
| 刻 | Chinese: 苦得切 | pronounced as /kʰək/ | pronounced as /kʰɛt˩/ | carve, engrave, a moment | |
| 北 | Chinese: 博墨切 | pronounced as /pək/ | pronounced as /pɛt˩/ | north | |
| 國 | Chinese: 古或切 | pronounced as /kuək/ | pronounced as /kʷɛt˩/ | country, state |
Southern Min (Minnan, including Taiwanese) has two entering tones:
A word may switch from one tone to the other by tone sandhi. Words with entering tones end with a glottal stop ([-ʔ]), [-p], [-t] or [-k] (all unaspirated). There are many words that have different finals in their literary and colloquial forms.
Eastern Min, as exemplified by Fuzhounese, also has two entering tones:
Within its complex tone sandhi laws, Fuzhounese has a split in sandhi behavior between two separate upper/dark entering tones. This is believed to be a reflex of an earlier stage in its development, where final /k/ was distinguished from final /ʔ/.[16]
In the related Fuqing dialect, a proportion of entering tone lexemes have lost their glottal stop and have merged into the phonetically equivalent tones:[17]
| + Outcomes of Glottal Stop Retention in Fuzhou vs Loss in Fuqing | Historical Entering Tone | Dark entering (陰入) | Light entering (陽入) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entering Tone Character | ||||||||
| Fuzhou dialect[18] (colloquial reading) | gáh pronounced as /kɑʔ˨˦/ | só̤h pronounced as /sɔʔ˨˦/ | kuóh pronounced as /kʰuɔʔ˨˦/ | siŏh pronounced as /suoʔ˥/ | diăh/diĕh pronounced as /tieʔ˥/ | uăh pronounced as /uaʔ˥/ | dĭk pronounced as /tiʔ˥/ | |
| Historical Other Tone | Dark departing (陰去) | Dark level (陰平) | ||||||
| Other Tone Character | ||||||||
| Fuzhou dialect (colloquial reading) | gá pronounced as /kɑ˨˩˧/ | só̤ pronounced as /sɔ˨˩˧/ | kuó pronounced as /kʰuɔ˨˩˧/ | suŏ pronounced as /suo˥/ | diă/diĕ pronounced as /tie˥/ | uă pronounced as /ua˥/ | dĭ/tĭ pronounced as /ti˥/ | |
| Fuqing dialect (colloquial reading) | pronounced as /kɑ˨˩/ | pronounced as /θɔ˨˩/ | pronounced as /kʰuɔ˨˩/ | pronounced as /θyo˥˧/ | pronounced as /tia˥˧/ | pronounced as /ua˥˧/ | pronounced as /ti˥˧/ | |
This merger can also affect sandhi environments, but there is the option to use the sandhi pattern of the former checked tone while still eliminating the final glottal stop.
Additionally in Fuqingnese, sandhi environments where the light entering tone is non-final cause the glottal stop to weaken and in some tones lost, and where the tone changes to a low sandhi tone pronounced as //˨˩//, the glottal stop is completely lost. The dark entering tone on the other hand retains its glottal stop in sandhi environments.
Many Chinese words were borrowed into Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese during the Middle Chinese period so they preserve the entering tone to varying degrees.
Because Japanese does not allow a syllable to end with a consonant except ん n, the endings -k, -p, -t were rendered as separate syllables -ku or -ki, -pu, and -ti (Modern -chi) or -tu (Modern -tsu) respectively. Later phonological changes further altered some of the endings:
Recovering the original ending is possible by examining the historical kana used in spelling a word, which has also aided scholars in reconstructing historical Chinese pronunciation.
Korean keeps the and endings while the ending is represented as (tapped, pronounced as /link/, if intervocalic) as Sino-Korean derives from a northern variety of Late Middle Chinese where final had weakened to pronounced as /link/.[19]
Vietnamese preserves all endings pronounced as //p//, pronounced as //t// and pronounced as //k// (spelt Vietnamese: -c). Additionally, after the vowels Vietnamese: ê or Vietnamese: i, the ending -Vietnamese: c changes to Vietnamese: -ch, giving rise to Vietnamese: -ich and Vietnamese: -êch, and Vietnamese: ach (pronounced pronounced as //ajk//) also occurs for some words ending with Vietnamese: -k.
Only the Vietnamese: [[Vietnamese phonology#Tone|sắc]] and Vietnamese: nặng tones are allowed on checked tones. In Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary, those tones were split from the Middle Chinese "entering" tone in a similar fashion to Cantonese. Whether the syllable tone should be Vietnamese: sắc or Vietnamese: nặng depends on the original Middle Chinese syllable's initial consonant voicing.
| Chinese character | Middle Chinese reconstruction | Vietnamese | |
|---|---|---|---|
| pronounced as /[pɐk]/ (voiceless initial) | Vietnamese: bách | ||
| pronounced as /[bʰɐk]/ (voiced initial) | Vietnamese: bạch | ||
| pronounced as /[ɕĭĕt]/ (voiceless initial) | Vietnamese: thất | ||
| pronounced as /[dʑʰĭĕt]/ (voiced initial) | Vietnamese: thật | ||
| pronounced as /[ʔĭĕt]/ (voiceless initial) | Vietnamese: nhất | ||
| pronounced as /[nʑĭĕt]/ (voiced initial) | Vietnamese: nhật | ||
| pronounced as /[mĭĕt]/ (voiced initial) | Vietnamese: mật | ||
| pronounced as /[bʰĭuət]/ (voiced initial) | Vietnamese: phật | ||
| pronounced as /[kĭuət]/ (voiceless initial) | Vietnamese: khuất or Vietnamese: quật |