A FIFTH TONE IN THE MANDARIN SPOKEN IN SINGAPORE / 新加坡华语里的 '第五声'

Author(s): Chen Chung-Yu and 陈 重 瑜

Source: Journal of Chinese Linguistics , JANUARY 1983, Vol. 11, No. 1 (JANUARY
1983), pp. 92-119
Published by: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press on behalf of Project on
Linguistic Analysis

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23757822

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 斬か攻华it里的、第五声'
陳4瑜
新加疚国支夂拿

大夕敫的新加锼人都全洗-岣种甸粵
さ言.f谇是四钟官方法意之一，也是呼生
冶+釣用饽。中J现代方言圼的入声莩万、
完整旦不規則地畚在于本絶的浐i吾里.g：
个茅五声足-亇パ專调,肩对帝肩“ヤイ!象
音韵見,肩对则和,•因此它省对较fi吾
圼的茅、:^短促ノ肩对刈皮肩分ルJ. A
这_个调务2 Mパ？ズ的方言入/字A现サ叱
弟五，•福達ん肩氣大的ィ唉句他方言入/
字诶作茅五，姨辛ろm卞.华语s筝ー
声仏 1入声字读作箏五声的頰辛義高,m
エ•ハ第三声的掌頰辛最低j有mん
il卞茅五声す能;是嫌自丨旬等方言的|乡响.

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 A FIFTH TONE IN THE MANDARIN

SPOKEN IN SINGAPORE

Chen Chung-Yu
National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT:

The great majority of Singaporean Chinese have a sou

ern Chinese dialect background. Mandarin is an acquired
language, but a language of daily use. The Middle Chinese
Ru-sheng exists partially and inconsistently in the Mandarin
spoken in Singapore. Certain Middle Chinese Ru-sheng Zi
appear more often than others in this ’Fifth Tone’; the same
Ru-sheng Zi may sometimes appear in this Fifth Tone and at
other times in the correct tone in the speech of the same
person. This Fifth Tone also has a falling pitch. While it
often differs from Mandarin Tone 4 in being shorter or more
♦This paper was read by title at the Fouth Biennial
Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia
at Melbourne on May 14，1982.

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 94 JOURNAL OF CHINESE LINGUISTICS, Vol. 11, No. 1

tense in the whole syllable, it sometimes appears to be

identical to Tone 4. Therefore, it cannot be consistently
distinguished from Tone 4. M.C. Ru-sheng Zi syllables which
have an or -e ending in Mandarin never appear in the
Fifth Tone. In this study, 70.9% of the Ru-sheng Zi of
Mandarin Tones 1, 2, and 3, ending with the nucleus,
appeared in the Fifth Tone. The Hokkien group showed the
highest frequency of such a tonal reading, 89.4%. Mandarin
1st Tone characters were most susceptible to this feature,
84.1%; and 3rd Tone characters were least affected, 22.8%.
No correlations have been found between the frequencies of
the Firth Tone and certain historical categories as preserved
in the Southern dialects. Influences of the Southern dialects

is probably the source of the Fifth Tone.

1, PHONOLOGICAL FEATURES OF THE 'FIFTH TONE?.

Standard Mandarin has four full tones. In the speec

of the great majority of Singapore Chinese, however, ther
is an additional tone, which is by far the most distinct
feature of Singapore Mandarin. This additional tone, th
’Fifth Tone1 hereafter, occurs only in characters which en
with a stop coda, i.e. bearing one of the Entering Tones,
modern southern Chinese dialects, which are native to
Singaporean Chinese. For simplicity, these characters are

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 A FIFTH TONE IN SINGAPORE MANDARIN 95

called ’Ru-sheng Zif hereafter. However,

sheng Zi appear in this Fifth Tone in th
Singaporeans. Certain Ru-sheng Zi appear m
others in this tone (cf. Appendix 1); the sam
may sometimes appear in this Fifth Tone an
in the correct tone in the speech of the same
consecutive repetitions. Nevertheless, Ru-she
with a glide final -i or -u in Mandarin never
Fifth Tone.

The Fifth Tone has the following properties: (1) It is a

falling tone with a pitch value varying between 41 (弋）to 42
(2a) It sometimes ends with a glottal stop [？J, which
varies in degrees of prominence. (2b) Owing to the glottal
stop coda, the whole syllable appears to be fairly tense (i.e.
fortis), and the initial consonant seems to have a clear-cut
onset. In other words, there seems to be diffusion over the
whole syllable of the tenseness of the final glottal stop. (2c)
Sometimes, the final glottal stop is no longer audible; that
is, the syllable is not shortened, but the tenseness diffused
over the whole syllable still remains. (3) Sometimes, it is
identical to the Mandarin Tone 4.

To sum up, while all the Singaporean Fifth Tone

morphemes are reflexes of the Ru-sheng in Middle Chinese
or the modern Southern dialects, M.C. Ru-sheng characters
may appear in either/both the correct tone or/and the Fifth
Tone, depending on the individual character or the speaker.

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 JOURNAL OF CHINESE LINGUISTICS, Vol. 11, No. 1

Moreover, the Fifth Tone cannot be consistently distin

guished from Mandarin Tone 4.

2. AN OBSCURE AND FLICKERING BORDERLINE BETWEEN

THE 4th TONE AND THE 5th TONE.

In the speech of the Singaporeans, Mandarin Tones 1,

2, and 4 often appear to be 'lower’ in general: Tone 1 is
often realized as 44 (i), Tone 2 as 24 (/{), Tone 4 as 41 or,
sometimes, even 42 (イ）• (Standard Mandarin Tone 3 when
appearing before a tone other than another Tone 3 or before
a pause already has a very low pitch, 11 (J ) or, according
to Chao (1968), 211 (J).)
Now, both Tone 4 and Tone 5 in Singapore Mandarin
have a pitch value of 41 or 42, and the glottal stop coda in
Tone 5 is an unstable and, hence, optional element. It fol
lows that there is no solid boundary between the two tones.
Sometimes they appear to be identical, at other times they
are definitely different. The difference may lie in the short
ness of Tone 5 caused by a final glottal stop, or, as it is
more often the case, in the tenseness originated by an
earlier glottal stop, which has diffused over the whole syl
lable.

In the data, there were a few times in which a 4th

Tone non-Ru-sheng character occurred with a glottal stop
final (e.g•才圭，威），but such instances were extremely rare.
The informants were in general unable to distinguish be

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 A FIFTH TONE IN SINGAPORE MANDARIN

tween Tone 4 and Tone 5. When presented with several

minimal pairs (e.g. 吸:戏；名:取 ；etc.), most informants

said that they were 'the sameT or 'about the same1. A few
said that the first characters were ’shorter、One said the

first characters were 'heavier', probably meaning ’more

tense1.

The informants also showed difficulties in differen

tiating between the 5th Tone reading and the correct

non-4th Tone reading of the Ru-shenq Zi. The following is
one of the many instances illustrating this point: An
informant read the term 服 in both "i \ and "fv)
patterns. But when asked to read the item again, she said,
"It's always 1H (？反服》， never 州."
To sum up, while Tone 5 often differs from Tone 4 in
being slightly shorter or more tense in the whole syllable,
there are times when it appears identical to Tone 4. Hence,
they cannot be consistently distinguished. For this reason, it
is sometimes referred to as 'the short-falling pitch* in
preference to fthe Fifth Tone*, as the latter seems to sug
gest more strongly a completely detached identity.

3. MATERIAL AND METHOD.

This report of the Fifth Tone is part of a study of

Singaporean Mandarin, which includes segmental featur
well as non-Ru-sheng Zi. It concentrates on the tonal
readings of the 121 Ru-shen^ characters in the study. Disyl

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 98 JOURNAL OF CHINESE LINGUISTICS, Vol. 11, No. 1

labic vocabulary items with Ru-shen号 characters appearing

as the first or/and second constituents were used as test

units• Sometimes a Ru-shen号 character was tested at bo

positions (e.g.ttj' and ^).
The speech of ten informants was recorded and ana
lyzed. For each of the five major Chinese dialect groups in
Singapore, namely (in random order, see Appendix 3 for the
distribution), Hainanese, Cantonese, Hokkien (i.e. Southern
Min in the Fujian province), Hakka, and Teochew, two infor
mants were chosen, one being a student of the former
Nanyang University, and the other, an administrative staff
member of the same university. The informants were all
C hinese-educated; their ages ranged from twenty to early
thirties. In this way, two social variables, age and educa
tional level were already controlled. A few of them spoke,
other than Mandarin, only their native dialect, but under
stood one or more of the other dialects. Only one informant
(Informant No. 4) claimed that he understood as well as

spoke only his native dialect. As a matter of fact, Singa

porean Chinese are typically multilingual in southern
Chinese dialects. To choose informants who speak only one
dialect would result in presenting atypical samples. Hence,
no deliberate effort was made in the selection of informants

with respect to ’purity’ of dialect background; the only

requirement was that only one dialect was used at home.
The informants were given the same series of disyl

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 A FIFTH TONE IN SINGAPORE MANDARIN 99

labic vocabulary items to read. Each item was read at least

twice. The recorded material was then transcribed and

analyzed.

4. RESULTS•

The readings of 121 Ru-sheng Zi items of Manda

Tones 1，2, and 3 were examined and compared. Among
them, there were 10 items from Middle Chinese -k category,
which have a glide ending in A or -u in Mandarin. It was
found that these 10 items never carried the Fifth Tone (cf.

Section 4.5). Hence they were excluded from the frequency

studies below. Thus, there are a total of 111 Ru-shengr Zi
items compared in Chart 1: 39 items of Mandarin 1st Tone
(6 from Middle Chinese -£ ending category, 18 from -_t, and
15 from -k); 64 items of the 2nd Tone (14 from 19 from

-jt, and 31 from -Jc); 8 items, of the 3rd Tone (1 from 6

from -^t, and 1 from -Jc). 47 items of the 4th Tone were also
examined. However, since the 4th Tone and the 5th Tone
cannot be consistently distinguished, these items were later
excluded from the comparison.
In the charts below, the magnitude of the 5th Tone
(or, the short-falling pitch) reading was measured by fre
quency counts: One point was given to each item read by
one informant. When an item was read in two or more ways
by the same informant, one point was shared proportionally
by the several readings. For instance, if an item was read

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 <* aR aR i* * c* a* a* aR aR aR * aR
CD rH CO o> CT5 CM CD 00 CD CT5 CD
• • • • • • • •

i—4
(M Tf CO CD 00 CD CM O ID O CO
cd rH 00 CM CD O CM CM

o
H
•
ID ID ID ID
o rH O 00 O o O CM CM ID co co
c • • • • • • • • • • •

CJ5 00 CM CM rH rH 00 O CM C- o
Tf CMrH CM CD rH 00 00
CO rH CM t

i* * * as aR a* aR aR aR aR
CO CO rH o o> o o 1 CM CM CD
• • • • • • I • • •

rH Tf rH rH o o COTf CM
rH 00 CM 00 CM CM C

Is'
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ID ID ID ID
o rH ID Tf o> O O o o 1 o ID
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CD O CD 00 CM 05 00 CM
rH CM 00 CM o Tf rH
rH CM rH CO

# <* & * * <* a* aR aR aR aR aR

rH CT> o CD CO oo CO CO oo oo rH rH
• * • • • •

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t-H 00 CM CO rH 00 rH CM CD
Y1
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o CO CM O ID C ID rH Tf
c • • • • • • •

ID o> ID rH 00 O rH C o 00 ID CD
(M ID rH CM ID CM C- CM

for the Ru-sheng Zi. rH rH rH CM

aR <* <* <# c# aR aR aR aR *

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• • • • • • • • •

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rH 00 CM rH 00 CM fr

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o ID
CHART1.FrequnciesoftheS ort-FalingPitch
CO o O ID ID ID CM
c • • • •
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• •

CD
CM rH CM o rH 00 ID CO rH
ID CO O CD
rH rH

(3D
_c * * * *
■5 # * * * * * * * 9-5>axnBcOJlodJP>9BIJSCOMluod9U0-sabm0JOE 0M1u!PCOEJ .S (•wtucUJ'DGOaJ JcoJaAow
c * * * * * * * * * # * *
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 A FIFTH TONE IN SINGAPORE MANDARIN 101

three times in one way and one time in anoth

informants sometimes repeated an item sever
point and 0.25 point would be given respective
readings. The fact that different informant
a different number of times necessitates such
frequency counts, or else different weights
to the informants, which would result in dist
ations,

4.1 FREQUENCY COUNTS OF THE FIFTH TONE FOR

Ru-sheng Zi OF MANDARIN TONES 1, 2, AND 3

Of the 1110 readings (i.e. Ill items read by 10 infor
mants), only 25.4% occurred in the correct pitches, 70.9%
occured in the short-falling pitch, and 3.6% in pitches of
other tones.

As shown in Chart 1, 1st Tone characters were most

susceptible to the short-falling pitch reading; 84.1% of the
occurrences of the Ru-sheng Zi bore this pitch, and only
12.6% of the readings were in the correct pitch. For 2nd
Tone characters, 68.9% of the readings bore the short
falling pitch, and 26.9% were correct in respect to pitch.
3rd Tone characters were least affected; only 22.8% of the
readings carried the short-falling pitch, 76.6% of the occur
rences were correct in pitch.
Statistics pertaining to Middle Chinese ending cate
gories (i.e. -£, -Jc), which have been preserved in various

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 102 JOURNAL OF CHINESE LINGUISTICS, Vol. 11, No. 1

ways in the Southern dialects, are as follows: 77.8% of the

-£ ending characters bore the short-falling pitch, 74.2% for
the -k ending characters, and 64.1% for the -_t ending char
acters. The percentages for the -£ and -k endings were
higher than that for -_t, but the differences do not seem to
be great enough to warrant a significant correlation.

4.2. QUEST FOR HISTORICAL IMPLICATIONS.

Mandarin is an aquired language in Singapore. There

fore, any historical categories used in the explanation of
features not found in Standard Mandarin (i.e. features found

only in Singaporean Mandarin) must have found their way

into Singaporean Mandarin through distinctions preserved in
the Southern dialects.

The statistics in Chart 1 indicate that while the M.C.

stop endings -ふ and -k do not seem to have much

bearing on the frequencies of the 5th Tone, the Mandarin
tonal categories, Tones 1, 2, and 3, do show some relevance
in this respect. There are two possible sources for such
apparent relevance: (1) M.C. initial distinctions as preserved
in the upper and lower registers of Ru-sheng in the Southern
dialects; (2) the phonetic characteristics of the Mandarin
tones.

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 A FIFTH TONE IN SINGAPORE MANDARIN 103

The evolution of M.C. Ru-sheng in Standard Mandarin

can be summarized as follows (Chen, M.Y. 1976):

Voice kJ
M.C. Initial Voiceless
Sonorant Obstruent

Mandarin
M.C. Ru-sheng Mandarin T4 Mandarin T2
Tl, T2, T3, T4

The fact that both the Mandarin Tones 1 and 3, which

showed respectively the lowest and highest percentages of
correct tonal readings, are derived from M,C. voiceless
initials indicates that M.C. initials, like M.C. endings, do
not constitute a conditioning factor in the occurrence of the
Fifth Tone reading. To double-check this point, a comparison
is made of he Mandarin 2nd Tone Ru-sheng Zi items, which
have come from both voiced and voiceless initial categories
in Middle Chinese. This voiced/voiceless distinction is pre
served in the lower/upper registers of the Ru-sheng in some
of the Southern dialects.

Among the 62 2nd Tone characters examined in this

study, 35 have come from M.C. voiced initials (i.e. bearing
the lower register of Ru-shen^ in some of the Southern
dialects), and 27 have come from M.C, voicless initials (i.e.
bearing the upper register of Ru-shen且 in the dialects). They

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 104 JOURNAL OF CHINESE LINGUISTICS, Vol. 11, No. 1

are compared in Chart 2 with respect to tonal readings.

As shown in Chart 2, on the parameter of M.C. init
ials, the frequencies of the Fifth Tone are 69.3% and 69.9%
for the voiced and the voiceless groups respectively. This is
a clear indication that M.C. initial categories, preserved as
tonal differences in the Southern dialects, play no part in
determining the occurrence of the Fifth Tone.
Moreover, the statistics in Chart 2 reconfirm the

earlier conclusion that M.C. endings -_t, -Jc, as preserved

in various ways in these dialects, have no bearing on the
frequency of the Fifth Tone, the percentages of the correct
pitch readings being 26.4%, 24.3%, and 27.1%, respectively.
As revealed in Chart 1, the 1st Tone, which has a
level pitch with a value of 55 (though often realized as 44
in Singapore Mandarin), is most susceptible to the 5th Tone
reading. A fact which possibly attributes to this is that in
the five Southern dialects, the pitches of the Ru-sheng are
either level or falling: 51 (underlining indicates shortness in
duration) and 42 for Wenchang Hainanese; 5, 33, and 22/2
for Cantonese; 32 and 5 for Amoy Hokkien; 21^ and 4 for
both Meixian Hakka and Teochew.

The 3rd Tone, which is a falling-rising pitch with a

basic value of 214, has been found to be least affected by
this feature. Among the five Southern dialects, only

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 -3
O to
rf

* * * * * * * * * * * *
* * # * * * * *
* * * *

to

* : Cor ect pitch I—' ^ 00

00 to 00
00 ^ H-4 -O tO -O to
co cn o cn cd cn to
• • •
• •• ••• | • •
tn Oi oo cn co <n o to ^ I cn cn
cn cn cn cn
* : Short-fal ing PJ;=P

Oi to Oi CO H D to to
m co tn to D H to OS H —3 to
• •• ••• | • •
co co ^3 m to cn o ^ I cn cn
<£ Sfc ^ afc Sfc afc 4*. cn sfc afc

* :Pitchesof thertonalctegories
h-4
00 to 4* CO h-4 to i—*
00 00 CO to cn o 00 o cn 45*
• • • •

o to cn ■<] o o cn o cn
cn cn cn cn

cn to -o to cn CO cn co
CO CO 4^ CO 00 h-4 o H tO O)
• • •

o COH-4 cn CO CO o to cn to
c# <* <* * c£ ctf c# cn ^ cn
Dif erncesintheSouthernDialects

to H-4 i—4
H-4 00 to I—4 o CO

inRespct oM.CInitalCtegoris(Pres vedasTonal

<n to H-4 o <n CO o to
• • • •

o cn CO o to cn cn o
cn cn cn cn

CHART2.Comparison fReadingsofMandri 2ndToeRu-shengZi

tO H D tO -O tO
to o o m ^ ^ o co cn
• •• ••• •••

0<Oh-> l-> <J5 CO M ^

^ vQ vfi v-O sD \p
O*-- * ^ ^

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 106 JOURNAL OF CHINESE LINGUISTICS, Vol. 11, No. 1

Teochew has a falling-rising pitch. A possible explanation

for the low frequency of the 5th Tone reading for 3rd Tone
items is that the falling-rising pitch of the 3rd Tone is a
decidedly distinct contour, and this makes it less susceptible
to the confusion.

4.3. PERFORMANCE OF INFORMANTS FROM DIFFERENT

DIALECT BACKGROUDS - a Preliminary Probe.

This study examines the speech of two informants for
each of the five major dialect groups in Singapore. Chart 3
below presents the frequencies of the short-falling pitch for
items of the 1st and 2nd Tones in the speech of informants
from the five dialect groups. 3rd Tone items have been
excluded from the comparison here, partly because the
number of items examined is small (8 items as compared with
39 and 64 for the 1st and 2nd Tones respectively) and partly
because 3rd Tone items are much less of a problem as
compared with items of the 1st and 2nd Tones (76.6% for
the correct readings as compared to 12.6% and 26.9% for
the 1st and 2nd Tones).

According to the figures in Chart 3, the Hokkien

group showed the greatest tendency to read the Ru-shenfr Zi
in the 5th Tone; the frequency was 89.3%. The frequencies
for the Cantonese, Hakka, and Hainanese were 82.2%, 77.2%,
and 62.8%, respectively. The Teochew group had the lowest
frequency for this tone, and that was 61.3%. Nevertheless, it

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 o
CL
O
c <"
aR
TJ no. a no.
* * * * * * * * * C JL * *
* * * * * * £L * *
* * * *

Oi CO Oi CO
h-4 H-4 Oi to CO 00
•
i-1 33
h-4 CD tO CD o o o SB.
* : Cor ect pitch an co h-4 to
CD
Oi afc afc afc 5*;
4^ to to O Oi W 4m* - — od
• •
<2
CD 00 4k o COOi Oi to Oi to
& <* <* cn cn ^ 00 o> 00 "N5 S
* : Short-fal ing pj?=r • •

OO 4*. OO
• •

o
•

CO
•

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cn cn
a* aR aR

-q h-4 -a to
CO -O CD CO CD o

CO o
• • • • •

H-4 H-4 O CD to CO 4k
00 h-4 o> co ?&?&}& cn cn CO
H-4 to o> CO CD CO _ 3
• • • •
, — _ — — « rt
CJ5 tO to to CO 4H 00 h-4 CD H-4 o

* :Pitchesof thertonalctegories 3 1
cn cn
c* <* a* -o to o CO
o
* s
• •
o v •
4k Qi o o
(D

OO H-4 OO r—4
to CO CO to 4k
• • • • •

H-4 4k 00 -O cn CO h-4 w 33
00 00 cn cn O
H-4
aR aR aR *■
h-4 CD CD to 4k CD
• • •

tO 4k 4^ cn o 4k CD CD
cn cn
<* ^ # 4^ cn cn
3
CD h-4

ND tO
OOl M o 00 CO
3?
►—4 cn -o cd cn CD
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• • • • • •
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CHART3.FrequnciesoftheSort-FalingPtchfortheRu-shengZi
05 W H O CJ1 4*
<t>
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0 H CO 0O)O
• • • • • • — n
tO CO >P* OUO! -O (-» OO K
s? a? a? ui tn W<C ui H -J <t>
• • • • • •

0 O <1 tO
a? a? a? ww

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 108 JOURNAL OF CHINESE LINGUISTICS, Vol. 11, No. 1

was not the Teochew group but the Hainanese who scored
the highest percentage for the correct pitch, 32.4% for the
Hainanese as opposed to 29.4% for the Teochew group. This
is because the Teochew group also had the highest percent
age for pitches of other tonal categories, which was 9.2%
(as compared to 4.9% to 1.2% for the other groups).
Since the sample size for each dialect group is very
small, the data in Chart 3 is best viewed as a preliminary
probe into the influence of the informants' dialect back
ground on their Mandarin pronunciation, rather than a con
clusive finding.

4儿 FREE VARIATION BETWEEN CORRECT AND

INCORRECT TONAL READINGS - The Instability of the

Pronunnciation

As has been noted earlier, the informants sometimes

pronounced the same form in more than one way, and this
happened even in consecutive repetitions. As a matter of
fact, such unstableness was found not only in the tonal
reading of the Ru-shen^ Zi but also in the pronunciation of
certain initials and finals.

As an attempt to measure the magnitude of the

instability in the tonal readings of the Ru-sheng Zi, Chart 4
records the frequencies of free variation among the correct
pitch, the short-falling pitch, and pitches of other tonal
categories. For instance, of the 111 Ru-sheng Zi, Informant

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 CT> OHO
ft
CD t-» 2. 4* S£ w
CO r+ 00 O T
Q.
3 ' '
CO & cd H K? H CD &^"S.
09 3
CD O cd Q
3 § 3 3
O
e.
wCDs
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3 3
CO CD CO
CD
T
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a o a o

s
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CO ^ 25.
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00
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° o
00

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a

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 110 JOURNAL OF CHINESE LINGUISTICS, Vol. 11, No. 1

No. 1 read 11 of them in two or more ways (i.e. in all or

any two of the following readings: the correct pitch, the
short-falling pitch, and pitches of other tonal categories),
and 100 of them in only one way, be it the correct pitch or
the incorrect. That yields a frequency of 9.9% of free vari
ation.

The statistics in Chart 4 indicate that among the

three Mandarin tones under investigation, Tone 3 showed the
highest frequency of free variation, 17.5% as compared to
12.2% and 11.7% for Tone 1 and Tone 2, respectively. The
Hokkien group showed the lowest frequency of free vari
ation, 4.5%, Hainanese and Teochew had the same highest
frequency, 17.1%, while Cantonese and Hakka had 14.4% and
13.1%, respectively.
Chart 1 has revealed that Tone 3 has the highest
percentage of correct tonal readings. But now it is found to
be most subject to free variation. Chart 3 has shown that
the Hainanese and the Teochew groups had the highest
scores for correct tonal readings, and the Hokkien group had
the lowest score. Now the Hainanese and the Teochew

groups are found to be the most unstable with respect to

tonal readings, and the Hokkien group, the most stable.
These facts and figures, nevertheless, do not constitue a
contradiction. They simply reveal that the correct readings
were less stable and the incorrect readings were more
stable. In other words, the majority of the Ru-shen^r Zi were

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 A FIFTH TONE IN SINGAPORE MANDARIN 111

consistently read incorrectly (i.e. in the short

by the informants, a small number of them oc
the correct and incorrect pitches, and another small number
of them were consistently correct.
In Singapore, Mandarin speakers are exposed to both
good pronunciations (e.g. the speech on T.V. and radio) and
not-so-good pronunciations (e.g. the speech of the masses)
all the time. Hence, the pronunciation of a word is regis
tered differently at different times. This is comparable to a
seesaw battle between the correct and the incorrect pronun
ciations. This is perhaps the reason for the fairly frequent
free variation that occurred in the speech of the informants.

4.5. A SPECIAL CASE OF !DUAL PRONUNCIATIONS' - a

Clue to the Source of the 5th Tone.

As mentioned earlier, among the forms examined,

there were 10 items of M.C. -jc category ending with a glide
of M.C. -Jc category ending with a glide -^i or -u in Standard
Mandarin, which never occurred in the short-falling pitch.
Here, a little elaboration is needed to make the picture
more comprehesive.

The ten items are: 票、，jL,脚，熟(/ou/)，吞，合；

誇，嫩，拆and蜜 .The first 6 items did not involve any
complication, except for the 3rd Tone reading of 对(cf.
Appendix 2). The other four items, however, each had two
pronunciations in terms of the final; one being the correct
Mandarin final ending with a glide, the other a monoph

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 112 JOURNAL OF CHINESE LINGUISTICS, Vol. 11, No. 1

CHART 5. A Case of ’Dual-Pronunciations’.

u f
Final: II au o(?) ou u(?) ai »(?) ai a(?)
Tone 2nd 5th 1st 5th 1st 5th 3rd 2nd 5th

* * * *
1 * * * *
Hainanese
9 * * *
L * * *

♦ * *
3 * * *
Cantonese
* * * ♦
4 j * * ♦ *

S * ♦ *
0 * * ♦
Hokkien -
6 * *
*
*
*
*
♦

7 J
*
*
Hakka — ■
8 :
* * * *
* * * *

9 * * * *
3 # ♦ * *
Teochew ■
io j
♦ ♦ *
* * *

Frequency 70% 30% 25% 75% 50% 50% 55% 10% 35%

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 A FIFTH TONE IN SINGAPORE MANDARIN 113

thong final accompanied by the short-falling

presents the reading of these items.
The number of such examples is small indeed. How
ever, these examples may contain the answer to the source
of the Fifth Tone: It seems quite obvious that the monoph
thong finals, which carried the 5th Tone, are pronunciation
borrowings from the Southern dialects. This fact affords
abundant evidence of the Southern dialects on the

Singaporean Mandarin
While the 5th Tone readings of other Ru-sheng Zi
items may not necessarily be carried by finals borrowed
from the dialects, there should be no doubt that the 5th
Tone itself, together with the tenseness over the whole
syllable, is a product of the Southern influence. A number of
examples on possible influence of the Southern dialects on
the tonal readings of some non-Ru-shen^ characters are
given in Appendix 2 for reference.

5. AN EPILOGUE ON THE SOURCE OF THE FIFTH TONE.

Mandarin is an acquired language for most Singapor

eans and Peking Mandarin has been held as the model
speech. The replacement of the correct pitch by the addi
tional short-falling pitch in the readings of most Ru-sheng
Zi is a very prominent feature in the Mandarin spoken in
Singapore. How this additional pitch ever entered into the
local variety of Mandarin is a question of considerable
interest. In the previous section, dialect influence has been

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 114 JOURNAL OF CHINESE LINGUISTICS, Vol. 11, No. 1

reckoned to be the source of this feature. Here, a few

words on a different view seem to be in order.

Yu-hung Chang (p.e.) is of the opinion that the speech

of the earlier teachers is responsible for the 5th Tone read
ings. That, however, is considered unlikely for the case
here. The speech of the early teachers may not have been
uniform in the first place. Even if we presume that the
early teachers had all followed the pronunciations in the
official dictionary Guoyi Zidian of 1919, where Ru-sheng
was artificially preserved, it is still unlikely that a small
number of teachers could have such a wide-spread and long
lasting influence on the speech of this large community.
(Incidentally, Guoyin Zidian has also made provision for the
distinction of sharp and rounded, i.e. jian and tuan, which
happens to be another feature in the speech of most Singa
porean Chinese. That, again, is considered here a result of
influence from the Southern dialects.)
One might argue that since such a short-falling pitch
reading of the M.C. Ru-sheng Zi in Mandarin never appears
to be a prominent feature, if not completely unheard of, in
the speech of the Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong or the
Southern Min speakers in Taiwan; dialect background, there
fore, should not be held responsible for it. One thing which
ought to be pointed out in this connection is that these
three places differ in their objective conditions for the use
of Mandarin. In Hong Kong Mandarin is not a language of

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 A FIFTH TONE IN SINGAPORE MANDARIN 115

daily use. If one does not use a language, he does not make
mistakes in that language. And when a Cantonese speaker in
Hong Kong is forced to speak Mandarin, he is most likely
speaking to a Mandarin speaker, which means he is likely to
have a reasonably good model before him. As for the situa
tion in Taiwan, the presence of many northerners and the
intensive teaching and learning of the National phonetic
Symbols certainly have been two positive factors for the
learning of Mandarin. (There are many local features in the
Mandarin spook en in Taiwan, but an additional tone is not
one of them.)

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 116 JOURNAL OF CHINESE LINGUISTICS, Vol. 11, No. 1

APPENDIX 1. List of Frequently Misread (i.e. read in the

Fifth Tone) Ru-shenq Zi items.

(a) Characters misread by 9 to 10 informants out of 10:

吸，湿，汁，鸭，喝，匹，擦，割，屈，失，
刮，踢，屋，约.夕，绩，级，辑，集，盒，
达，蝠，売，石，局，格4直-敌，蚀，竹，
职，漆，杀，压，碟，习，实，察。

(b) Characters misread bv 7 to 8 informants out of 10:

说，发，脱，突，出，桌，
答，急，蝶，合，拔，裁，
惜，食，疾，毒，德，革， 剥洁即 礼^,席 見！見么 只鞠塔
秀，激，隔，则，足，俗

(e) Character misread by 5 to 6 informants out of 10:

插，缺，忽，敌，托，杂，协，吉，结，绝:
杰，罚，乏，服。

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 APPENDIX 2. More on Tonal Readings (Other than
the Short-Falling Pitch).
Readings recorded in the data:

Item Correct % Incorrect % Possible Attribution

Reading Reading
1st Tone „ 4th Tone
% (Ying-Ping) (Qu) 95% Qu in Teochew

wW 1st Tone 0% 3rd Tone 100% (on the analogy of

the 3rd Tone ^ ?)
1st Tone 65% 2nd Tone oc(v Yang-Ping in Meixian
if (Yang-Ping) Amoy, Teochew
$ ■ 1st Tone 60% 2nd Tone 40%
Yan^-Ping in Cantonese
4th Tone 10% Qu m coloquial Amoy
# 2nd Tone 10% and other dialects
Sb??- 80%
Falling
Ru in literary Amoy

/a 0% 100%
CJ
2nd Tone 3rd Tone (On the analogy of ?)
25% 75%

Yang-Ping in Canton
« 3rd Tone 10% 2nd Tone 90% ese; Yang-Shang in
Teochew, pitch: 35 *1
(On the analogv of
*.*r. 3rd Tone 40%
0%
... „ 60%
4th Tone 4th Tone f3 $ ?)
100% Qu in Meixian, Teochew
Shang in Teochew
3rd Tone Qnq,
£ 4th Tone 20%
(Shang) 80 % and Amoy

■# 4th Tone 70% 3rd Tone 30%

(On the analogy of
3rd Tone (ife)?)
Readings observed elsewhere:
a. A 3rd Tone sometimes remains low-level before another 3rd
Tone. Thus, forms such as T 我请你 f, etc. sometimes ap
pear as a series of low-level pitches.
b.‘拿 f often assumes a low level pitch, 11 before a non-3rd
Tone or a pause. Before another 3rd Tone it either remains
low-level or becomes high-rising. In other words, it often
appears in a 3rd Tone. (It is Shang in Amoy and Teochew.)
c. ’ 吵！ often appears in a 2nd Tone, e.g. ’ 很吵（イ）’，
•不要吵(イ)’

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 118 JOURNAL OF CHINESE LINGUISTICS, Vol. 11, No. 1

APPENDIX 3. Certain Background Information on Singapore.

Population of 1980.
Total: 2,413,945
Chinese ethnics: 1,856,237 (i.e. 76.9% of the total)
Distribution of the Chinese population by Dialect
Group:
Hokkien: 43.1%

Teochew: 22.1%

Cantonese: 16.5%

Hakka: 7.4%

Hainanese: 7.%

Others: 3.9%

(Source: Department of Statistics, Republic of

Singapore)

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 A FIFTH TONE IN SINGAPORE MANDARIN 119

REFERENCES

CHAO, Yuen Ren. 1961. ’What is Correct Chinese?* Aspects

of Chinese Socialinguistics. Stanford University Press.
1976.

.1968. A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. University of

California Press.

CHEN, Matthew Y. 1976. 'From Middle Chinese to Modern

Peking.1 JCL Vol. 4, No. 2/3: 113-277.

LIN, Shuang-fu. 1979. ?Minnan Yuyin Jiegou duiyu Xuexi

Guoyu de YingxiangT (fThe Phonological Structure of
Southern Min in Relation to the Learning of Man
darin1). Zhonjgguo Yuyanxue Lunii. Youshi Yuekan She
(Young Lion Monthly). Taipei.

Peking University. 1964. Hanyu Fangyan Cihui. Beijing,

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