Mandarin Tone System:
Mandarin Tone System 4 tones + 1 ‘light’ tone
Cantonese Tone System:
Cantonese Tone System 6 non-entering and 3 entering tones
Phonetic Transcription Schemes:
Phonetic Transcription Schemes Chinese character sets (“scripts”): simplified, traditional
Pronunciation of a character = tonal syllable
= syllable + tone
Different syllable inventory for different dialects, e.g. Mandarin (official), Cantonese (major dialect)…
syllable in Roman alphabets
tone as a one-digit Arabic number
Popular schemes are
pinyin (for Mandarin) 銀行 (bank): /yin2 hang2/
jyutping (for Cantonese) 銀行 (bank): /ngan4 hong4/
<tone> element:
<tone> element
Proposed <tone> Element:
Proposed <tone> Element Tone
Vary with meaning, context and speaking style
相
in tone 2 means photo
in tone 3 means facial appearance / minister
Current SSML 1.0: phoneme
Requires pronunciation transcription
Example
<phoneme alphabet="x-lshk-jyutping" ph="soeng2">相</phoneme>
<phoneme alphabet="x-lshk-jyutping" ph="soeng3">相</phoneme>
Proposed <tone> element
with the required “value” attribute
<tone value="2">相</tone> (photo)
<tone value="3">相</tone> (face appearance)
inherit the alphabet attribute, or explicitly specify
Examples of Using “tone” Element:
Examples of Using “tone” Element Tone changes with meaning
糖 (candy / sugar)
<tone value="2">糖</tone> (tone 2 /tong2/: means candy)
<tone value="4">糖</tone> (tone 4 /tong4/: means sugar)
Tone changes with context
爺 (grandfather)
阿<tone value="4">爺</tone> (tone 4 /je4/: preceded by 阿)
爺<tone value="2">爺</tone> (tone 2 /je2/: preceded by 爺)
Tone changes with speaking style:
英文 (English)
英<tone value=“4">文</tone> (tone 4 /man4/: formal, read)
英<tone value="2">文</tone> (tone 2 /man2/: colloquial)
Tone Sandhi (Rules) :
Tone Sandhi (Rules) For Mandarin:
Tone3 Tone3 Tone2 Tone3
Etc.
For Cantonese:
Tone4 Tone4 Tone4 Tone2 OR
Tone4 Tone4 Tone4 Tone1
Tone4 Tone4 (no change)
Etc.
END:
END