Page:A Grammar of the Chinese Colloquial Language commonly called the Mandarin Dialect (IA dli.granth.92779).pdf/22

10 from tone-classes. By natural tones are meant certain inflexions of the voice, and variations in time and pitch, used with vowels and consonants to form spoken words. By tone-classes are meant those groups, into which the words of a dialect are divided, in order to receive the inflexions or other tonic variations preferred by that dialect. The tone-classes vary in number from four to eight. The natural tones are upwards of twenty. From them each dialect chooses arbitrarily a set sufficient to furnish an intonation for each of the classes referred to. For example, in the Nanking district, the words are distributed into five classes, and a distinctive intonation applied to each; thus     all written t‘o‘, belong to different classes numbered I to V, and receive different intonations.

The natural tones are the even or monotone, the rising and falling inflexion, and the rising and falling circumflex. These five doubled in number by pronouncing them quickly and slowly. By placing the ten intonations thus obtained, in a high or low they are still further to twenty. Four more are formed by applying the rising and falling inflexion to syllables short quantity, or terminated by a mute consonant, or distinguished  some other way.

i.The monotone is identical with a note of a musical instrument or the sound of a bell. Writers on elocution mark the monotone as that which should be used in describing what is sublime awful. The long monotone is much more used than the short an intonation in Chinese dialects.

ii.The rising inflection, or slide of the voice upwards, is modification of sound, used in English to express indignation and astonishment when placed in an interrogative form, also simple questing and contrast. It may be called the interrogative tone but it has not this character in Chinese pronunciation. It is common fault of foreigners, in addressing Chinese listeners to ask questions in the same tone they would employ in English. This should be avoided as giving a foreign complexion to the pronunciation. Interrogation is expressed exclusively by the words, and the syntax which combines them. The most emphatic utterance