Phonetics of Modern Standard Mandarin (普通话)

[Angelina]

BTW

You might want to reconsider San Duanmu (what others suggested in earlier posts)

http://www.oir.pku.edu.cn/umich/teaching/teaching_2008_course_description1.html

[mouse]

 

 

Anyway, yeah, I never meant to argue, that's not why I opened this thread. 

 

You opened this thread to talk about what you've been studying and "share some opinions". However, you're apparently unable to handle any difference of opinions and repeatedly shut down any disagreement by appealing to authority rather than making an argument. When that failed, you resorted to insults.

 

Because of this, what might have been an interesting thread about Chinese has now turned into a thread about you.

[renzhe]

It's my last post

Yay!

[BanZhiYun]

That's your own olinion @mouse. Let me give you a small hint; phonetics is basically like Maths and Physics, furthermore the topics these people have different opinions on are not contraversial from a Chinese point of view (our teacher has never said they are, she always says what's contraversial, e.g. the origin of the tones, why some of the dialecta have more than 4 tones, but Mandarin has only 4 etc.) In the meantime, I have had my arguments, but I was a little mean in the same time. So saying I didn't make an argument isn't exactly correct. Whether or not my argument was understood is a different story.

So, 换位思考一下，from my point of view, the so-called authorities trying to offend me on "non-contraversial" topics is not exactly sharing opinions. You see my point. You can see my very first posts towards these people. At the same time, I've a differrnt attitude towards @Angela @Demonic_Duck and @eddyf. That' pretty much it, it' really quite simple.

@renzhe Just like I've been to most people with similiar posts to yours, how does it feel to be relevant? Lol.

@Angela I'll check it out, thanks for.sharing.

[BanZhiYun]

Double post, my bad.

[BanZhiYun]

@Angelina Here are some classes related to Chinese language and Linguistics that are offered over here:

1. 汉语音韵学

2. 理论语言学 

3. 文字学

4. 汉语史 （上）（下）

5. 现代汉语语法研究

6. 实验语音学基础

7. 现代汉语虚词研究

8. 汉语修辞学

9. 现代汉语词汇研究

10. 汉语语音学基础

11. 普通话与方言

12. 汉语方言学

13. 索绪尔语言学理论

14. 美国结构主义语言学

15. 语言与文化

16. 社会语言学

17. 语义学

18. 语言类型学导论

19. 语言学概论

 

I am interested in all of the bolded courses, planning on taking them all before graduation. The italic ones seems interesting, but still not decided whether I'd like to take them or not. What is your advice?

[realmayo]

BanZhiYun,

 

Can you explain a bit more about what you mean by:

 

I am interested in the change of sounds using the same symbol (e.g. a, e, i, o in Pinyin, but totally different sounds in different combinations)

 

Like, some clearer examples?

 

Most people here have told you immediately that they don't think you understand the principles of pinyin very well. But Michaelyus at #31, at least, has been less dismissive ("There is plenty of rationale for "-i" representing the final vowel of 资 and 之").

 

So I'm interested in you explaining a bit more about what you're interested in. Is it about why certain letters were chosen when pinyin was invented?

[BanZhiYun]

I'll give a short example with "a". The "a" in the syllable "an" (or final, depends how you look at it) is different from the one in "ang". It uses the same symbol, but one of them is #4 on the Vowels Diagram (the one in "an"), then the other one is #5 (the one in "ang"). I am in class, so will elaborate more later.

 

Yeah, you are exactly right, that's what I am curious about, but I slowly realized that's not a question that could be answered by foreigners, lol. In short, Pinyin is not a phonetic alphabet, so it can only use only a number of signs (字符) to represent different sounds. Aka, it's a transcription. That's what I was looking for and I got an answer in our classroom, so yeah, sorry for "disturbing".

[lips]

So there are no native Chinese on this forum?

[BanZhiYun]

I would love if there were native Chinese on this forum who have studied Chinese Phonetics. I never said there are a. no native Chinese on this forum b. no native Chinese who have studied Chinese Phonetics. One of the most prominent people in general, who has a lot of 贡献 on Chinese Linguistics in general, is Zhao Yuanren (I've mentioned him in previous posts). He was a Chinese who flourished in USA. But that's a different topic. 

[lips]

... I slowly realized that's not a question that could be answered by foreigners ...

Let's see. You're a foreigner. So the implication is ....

Damn, I'm wasting me time! :O

[BanZhiYun]

D'oh, so I opened this thread, lol. And as I said, I've had an answer from my teacher (a Chinese, sorry.) Do you think I'd open a thread to talk to myself? I like your logic. (aka 0 common sense)

Now, as usual, have you made sure you understand 1/10000th of what I am saying, before trying to be dismissive? Because you totally fail at it. I'd advise to put more effort in real life activities instead of trying to be personal to strangers on forums. 

[陳德聰]

You mean you didn't open this thread to talk to yourself?

[realmayo]

The "a" in the syllable "an" (or final, depends how you look at it) is different from the one in "ang"

 

I agree that differences, especially the subtle ones, are interesting and can be too easily overlooked by learners. I have recently been doing some remedial pronunciation work which has included focusing on the difference "i" sounds in pinyin "-in" and "-ing" and it has taken some effort to break some old bad habits there.

 

I don't think you explained yourself 100% perfectly towards the beginning of this topic but it's a pity some people automatically assumed you were ignorant as a result. It's understandable you would then get defensive and annoyed with the discussion. But maybe it's a good idea to finish with this thread and maybe later start a new one that is more centred on the specific aspects of pinyin and phonetics that you're interested in, like the an/ang. And think of this topic as an example of the unfortunate misunderstandings and annoyances that occur online but not face-to-face.

 

Because to say that foreigners can't help you is clearly wrong. If a foreigner can't understand the topic well enough to give you a good answer ... then there's no point you asking a native expert ... because as a foreigner you won't understand! :) And I think arguing about phonetic alphabet versus phonetic transcription is an unnecessary argument because "phonetic alphabet" is a term widely used to describe pinyin, even if you think it's an inaccurate or imprecise term. I think there are better things to argue about. Like an/ang! Or whether mouth-diagrams for Chinese sounds sometimes need different diagrams for different tones, even where the pinyin is the same....

[realmayo]

@Michaelyus

 

More "alternative" perspectives on Mandarin phonology exist (e.g. only two vowels in Mandarin).

 

Interesting What are these two vowels? Where can I find out more?  

[BanZhiYun]

Yay, I am glad to see people like you @realmayo! I have something to do right now, will be back later.

[realmayo]

Hmm actually reading another thread I think you're too quick to take offence and too quick to belittle the backgrounds of others here. Then again, maybe that's just a hyper-extension of the trend in these forums to demand evidence of some published academic papers in response to each and every modest, tentative assertion.

[BanZhiYun]

Yeah, I haven't been the most "balanced" either, as seen in this and other threads. But I much prefer discussing with people like you, who are actually open to discussion. Not with people trying to demand and be like "oh, it's so, cus I said so.".

[BanZhiYun]

@realmayo, we've studied about "-in", "-ing" and all finals in Standard Chinese, overall. I am just not sure whether I can explain it in English or not, lol. I could explain it in Chinese better at the moment. Basically, "-in" and "-ing" are  鼻音韵尾韵母. So, we have to look at the difference between “n" and "ng", obviously both of them are 鼻音辅音, but one of them is 前鼻音 (n), while "ng" is a  后鼻音. I have the IPA description for both "-in" and "-ing" somewhere in this thread, you can have a look at it. The difference is in "ə" and "ʌ". To be able to pronounce properly the 鼻音韵尾, who are different (one is 前, one is 后) so, we have a very small time span between the "i" and the "n/ng".  The difference between "ə" and "ʌ" is exactly what we need. One is 前, one is 后, so to pronounce "-in", the sound is actually [i^ən], as for "-ing" the sound is [i^ʌn] (the one that's for "ng", for some reason I can't post it). Sorry, I can't elaborate myself too well on that in English, but that's a very basic outline of it.

[Michaelyus]

@realmayo

 

The Zhuyin Fuhao-based systems (including Gwoyeu Romatzyh and Hanyu Pinyin) are all essentially nine-vowel phoneme systems [帀 ㄚ ㄛ ㄜ ㄝ ㄧ ㄨ ㄩ ㄦ]. Merging 帀 with ㄧ and merging ㄜ with ㄦ brings the total down to a seven-vowel phoneme system. To fit the six Roman letters used for Hanyu Pinyin, ㄜ/ㄦ is merged with ㄝ under "e" as they are in complementary distribution. Then ㄨ was merged with ㄩ where possible into "u", only kept separate after l- and n-. 

 

But it is possible to consider the falling diphthongs as glides ending in /w/ and /j/, and to consider the rising diphthongs as glides in /w/, /j/ and /jw/ (or /ɥ/), the diversity of Mandarin Chinese's vowel sounds is moved into the glides, and only two (realistically three) vowel phonemes remain: /a/, /ə/ (the third is the null vowel).

 

So /a/ remains unscathed. The Pinyin e and o merging into an /ə/ "phoneme" is pretty well-known. But where did i, u and ü go then? They've all become "null vowel" syllables, extensions of the glides /j/, /w/ and /jw/ (=/ɥ/) respectively. 

 

This is actually on Wikipedia, but it comes from Hashimoto M.'s "Notes on Mandarin Phonology".