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Tone (linguistics)

In linguistics, tone is the use of pitch contour, pitch register, or both to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. In simple terms, a particular tone is the movement of a word or syllable's musical pitch: whether held steady, or sliding upwards or downwards, or any complex combination of these. Some…

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Overview

Mechanics

Types

Tonal change

Uses of tone

Tone and inflection

Phonetic notation

Africa

Asia

Origin and development

Americas

Europe

Summary

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Map overview Semantic statistics

Tone (linguistics)

Nodes341
Edges340
Triples17
Avg. degree1.99
Density0.005865
Components1

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Important terminology Word statistics

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Important terminology

tone languages tones pitch tonal language chinese may low syllable contour high systems one word two example also syllables consonants

Entity relationships Subject–Predicate–Object triples

SubjectPredicateObjectConfidenceSrc
ma to produce different wordsinstance ofits pitch depends chiefly on the tone of the preceding syllable.These tones combine with a syllable0.80text
one finds in musicinstance ofrather than as a contrast of absolute pitch0.80text
Chineseinstance ofThis is characteristic of heavily tonal languages0.80text
Vietnameseinstance ofThis is characteristic of heavily tonal languages0.80text
Thaiinstance ofThis is characteristic of heavily tonal languages0.80text
and Hmong.Howeverinstance ofThis is characteristic of heavily tonal languages0.80text
in many African languagesinstance ofThis is characteristic of heavily tonal languages0.80text
especially in the Nigerinstance ofThis is characteristic of heavily tonal languages0.80text
Yorubainstance ofIn languages of West Africa0.80text
people may even communicate with so-calledinstance ofIn languages of West Africa0.80text
Tsat in Hainan are tonal.The entire Krainstance ofplus some of the Chamic languages0.80text
the Dinka languageinstance ofand Wolof.All Nilotic languages0.80text

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