The tones of ancient Chinese are divided into four tones: flat, rising, going and entering. "Ping" refers to the flat tone in the four tones, including Yin Ping and Yang Ping. "Cue" refers to four tones, including up, down and middle. According to tradition, a flat tone is a flat tone, a rising tone is a rising tone, a falling tone is a falling tone, and an entering tone is a short tone. Ming dynasty "jade key to release vacuum" said:
"Don't be dejected and despondent,
The voice above shouted fiercely and strongly:
It's a long way to go, Xiu Yuan,
The urgent voice is short and urgent. 」
To put it simply, the key to the difference between flatness and unevenness lies in "unevenness is flatness".
Contemporary Chinese
In modern Chinese, there are four tones: even tone, rising tone, rising tone and falling tone.
In modern Chinese, the tones of Gupingsheng are divided into Yin Pingping and Yang Pingping, which are called the first sound and the second sound.
In modern Chinese, the tone of ancient "Shangsheng" is partly disyllabic and partly Shangsheng. Shangsheng is the third consonant in modern Chinese.
In modern Chinese, the tone of ancient disyllabic is still disyllabic, that is, the fourth tone.
The ancient Rusheng does not exist in modern Chinese. It has become a flat tone, a rising tone, a falling tone.
The modern Chinese four-tone tone table is as follows:
Yin Ping and Yang Ping walked up and down.
The first sound, the second sound, the third sound and the fourth sound.
For example:
BRIC
(flat tone) (rising tone) (rising tone) (falling tone)
In short, among the four tones in modern Chinese, the first and second tones are flat tones; The third and fourth sounds are ligatures.
The ancients recited poems with ancient sounds. Reading the ancient couplet of this kind of sound is easy to misunderstand that the level and level of the ancients do not conform to the law. For example, "suck in river water to make new tea;" Sell out the castle peak painting screen. "
Press four tones in Mandarin,
Suck into the river to make fresh tea;
Very flat, very flat.
Sell all the green hills as painting screens.
It is flat. It is flat.
According to the ancient four tones,
Suck into the river to make fresh tea;
Flat and light, flat and light.
Sell all the green hills as painting screens.
Ordinary, ordinary, ordinary.
Judging from the above arrangement, the ancient sound uses the law of slur, while the modern sound is not consistent (at least the law of upper and lower levels is inconsistent). Therefore, when we talk about Lianzhong Pingzhuan in the future, we must first find out whether the creator is based on ancient sound, modern sound or local dialect; Otherwise, it will make a joke.
Four tones and even tones
Four tones, here refers to the four tones of ancient Chinese. To know the four tones, the heart must first know how the four tones are formed. So let's start with the tone.
Tone is the characteristic of Chinese (and some other languages). The tone of Chinese is composed of the ups and downs and the length of the voice, and the ups and downs are the main factors. Take Putonghua as an example, * * * has four tones: the flat tone is Gao Pingtiao (it is called flat if it doesn't rise or fall); The upper voice is a rising tone (not high or low); The rising tone is a low rising tone (sometimes a low flat tone); Voiced is a high tone.
Ancient Chinese has four tones, but it is not exactly the same as Mandarin today. The ancient four tones are:
(1) flat voice. This tone is divided into Yin Ping and Yang Ping in later generations.
(2) on the sound. Part of this tone will become unvoiced in future generations.
(3) sounding. This tone is still unvoiced in later generations.
(4) if you are born. This sound is short. Modern Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangxi and other places still preserve the milk sheng. There are also many places in the north (such as Shanxi and Inner Mongolia) where raw milk is preserved.
The tone of entering tone in Hunan is not short, but it also retains the tone category of entering tone. In most spoken languages in the north and southwest, the entering tone has disappeared. In the north, some entering tones are flattened, some are flattened, some are raised and some are lowered. As far as Putonghua is concerned, the entering tone words become the most disyllabic, followed by the upper tone, and the upper tone words become the least. In the southwest dialect (from Hunan to Yunnan), the entering tone is changed to Yangping.
What is the shape of the ancient four-tone ups and downs? Now we can't know in detail. Traditionally, the flat tone should be the middle tone, the rising tone should be the rising tone, and the falling tone should be the falling tone.