A Fifth Tone in the Mandarin Spoken in Singapore

Abstract

Paper read at the Fourth Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Assoc of Australia, Melbourne, 14 May 1982. The great majority of Singapore Chinese speakers have a Southern Chinese dialect background. For them, Mandarin is an acquired lang - but one used daily. The Middle Chinese ru-sheng exists partially & inconsistently in Singapore Mandarin. Certain Middle Chinese ru-sheng ziappear more often than others in this "fifth tone." The fifth tone has a falling pitch. While it often differs from Mandarin tone 4 in being shorter or more tense in the whole syllable, it sometimes appears to be identical to tone 4. Therefore, the two cannot be consistently distinguished. It was found that 70.9% of the ru-sheng zi of Mandarin tones 1, 2, & 3, ending with the nucleus, appeared in the fifth tone. No correlations were found between the frequency of occurrence of the fifth tone & certain historical characteristics preserved by the Southern dialects. However, influence of the Southern dialects is probably the source of the fifth tone. Modified HA.