Page:A Grammar of the Chinese Colloquial Language commonly called the Mandarin Dialect (IA dli.granth.92779).pdf/23

Rh of the interrogative or rising inflexion, cannot make it interrogative to a Chinese ear. If it exists in his dialect, as most probably it will be found to do, the words to which he applies it should be noted, and the intonation in question carefully attached to them, and also to all words in their class.

iii.The falling inflexion is the tone applied in English conversation and reading to emphatic assertion, admiration, expostulation, and scorn. It is also used in sentences containing a contrast, and then stands in antithesis with the rising inflection: e. g. “Professing themselves to be wíse, they became foòls.” “To-dáy? No, next weèk.” The foreigner in pronouncing Chinese is prone to make constant use of this tone in indicative and imperative sentences. To remedy the constrained and incorrect elocution thus produced, some attention should be given to discover, to which tone-class in the interlocutor's dialect this intonation belongs. It is perhaps the most easily recognized of all the intonations. By exclusively employing it for words in its own class, a perceptible advance will be made in clearness of enunciation.

iv.The rising and falling circumflex are compounded of a rising and falling inflexion respectively. In English reading they express mockery. In Russell's Pulpit Elocution, the following passage is thus accentuated:—“And Elijah mocked the priests of Baal, and said, cry alôud, for he is a gǒd.” From the description given by this author, it is clear that the inflexions he refers to, are the same with those just mentioned as the rising and falling circumflex of Chinese dialects.

These compound inflexions are not so common in Chinese dialects, as the two preceding. When slow they give a whining effect to a dialect. If two intonations are appropriated to one tone-class, the slower of the two is very frequently a circumflex. When a majority of the tones are quick, and pronounced with decision, a dialect is said to be hard, ying‘. In the opposite case, it is said to be soft, ’jwan or ,k‘ing (t‘sing).

When tones differ in key, the interval is not usually greater than a second, or two full musical notes, for common conversation. In emphatic and harsh enunciation, occurring in the elocution of individuals and in dialects, this interval is sometimes extended to half an octave.