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Julielai Posted 21 years ago
Linguistics Studies

Tonal language and lyrics

0 Hi all, 02br
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00I'm not sure if this is the place for non-English linguistic chat. But here it is: 02br
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00I got a shipment of modern Chinese pop music from my folks back home, and as I played it in my car stereo, I thought the songs didn't sound right to me. It seems to me that lyricists nowadays put words with the wrong tones onto the wrong music notes, which causes a jarring effect. 02br
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00This reminds me of something my Chinese teacher said in school: many Chinese names have alternating tones (by that I mean "ping jak" in Cantonese -- we simply don't put three characters in "ping", or "jak" together. We alternate them.) Chinese names with the same tones just don't sound right to us. 02br
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00Anybody out there also speaking a tonal language? Caring to share your experience with us? Is there a universal phonological rule underlying all tonal languages? 02br
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Top answer

0 Julie, 02br 02br 00I hope you get some responses. This is fascinating. 02br 02br 00Meanwhile, I've always wondered: In English we using a rising tone to indicate we are asking a question.

— CalifJim

  • 0 Julie, 02br 02br 00I hope you get some responses.
  • This is fascinating.
  • 02br 02br 00Meanwhile, I've always wondered: In English we using a rising tone to indicate we are asking a question.
  • But in Chinese, doing that would (I assume from my limited knowledge of it) change the meaning of the last word or so of the sentence, wouldn't it?
  • In English we also use rising and falling tone throughout whole phrases, sometimes to indicate some emotional state or another.
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6 Answers
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0 Julie, 02br
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00I hope you get some responses. This is fascinating. 02br
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00Meanwhile, I've always wondered: In English we using a rising tone to indicate we are asking a question. But in Chinese, doing that would (I assume from my limited knowledge of it) change the meaning of the last word or so of the sentence, wouldn't it? In English we al
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0 In Chinese, we have question markers like "ma". e.g. Nei hou ma (literally: you well?) 02br
00In Japanese, the marker is "ka". e.g. gakksei desu ka? (you are student?) 02br
01blockquote
00How can you indicate emotional states? 12br
10Is this done by superimposing a sort of "tone of voice" over the tones on the individual syllables? 12blo
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0 I learn Mandarin, and as far as I'm aware, singers have always altered tones somewhat to fit melodies. Do you think there has been a change recently? 02br
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00Three identical tones in sequence don't seem to slip off the tongue very well. I'd also be interested to learn if other tonal languages have similar naming habits (avoiding these) - I would certainly guess so. 0-
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0 01blockquote
00I learn Mandarin, and as far as I'm aware, singers have always altered tones somewhat to fit melodies. Do you think there has been a change recently? 12blockquote
12br
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00Maybe this is a recent thing with Cantonese songs? 02br
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00Just found this on the web: 02br
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00"In mode
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0 yes, that's true for cantonese songs. There's 6 or arguably 9 tones in cantonese. Every minor change in tones can represent a whole different meaning and hence people avoid doing it. 02br
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00for example, "nang gau" (be able to) is a common cantonese word that we use it every day, but if you carelessly say it in high pitch, it can mean *** and ***. Deadly embarassing fo
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0 01blockquote
00How can you indicate emotional states? Is this done by superimposing a sort of "tone of voice" over the tones on the individual syllables? Or is there an entirely different grammatical or pragmatic "machinery" for showing these things? 12blockquote
12br
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00Good question. Tones are fixed and can't be changed in most cases
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