Guest Posted December 30, 2001 Report Share Posted December 30, 2001 It just occurred to me that at least one word in English is tonal -- the word OK. Used as a response it has a flat tone. Used as a question it has a rising tone. Strange. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThaiHome Posted December 30, 2001 Report Share Posted December 30, 2001 I believe that is called inflection. The meaning of the word is the same in both the question and the response. Not the same as as tones in Thai (or other tonal lanquages) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 31, 2001 Report Share Posted December 31, 2001 Escape Rabbit-- You can use "inflection" for alot of different words and (substantially) change the meaninig... try these: flat tone / rising tone done. / done? really / really? now / now? However, unlike thai, engligsh does not use tones as integral part of the written language. So that done (when used as a flat-tone statement) is written the same as done (when used as a rising-question tone statement).. --UPSer PS: Im just glad that I didn't have to hear any of my thai (or aother asian) female friends sing Jingle Bells this year.. I can't bear any more "fa ra ra ra ra ra ra" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 31, 2001 Report Share Posted December 31, 2001 In tonal languages like Thai, the tones are phonemes, just like consonants and vowels. So the tone makes the difference between na, meaning "rice field", and na, meaning "face." In English, tonal inflections are not phonemes that can change the meaning of a word from one thing to something else that is completely unrelated. They can change the meaning of a sentence or phrase by negating it or making it sarcastic or a question rather than an assertion. English inflection therefore operates at the discourse level (sentences, phrases, larger units of meaning), not the level of morphemes (words.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 31, 2001 Report Share Posted December 31, 2001 quote: Used as a response it has a flat tone. Used as a question it has a rising tone. Strange. Not that strange, really, considering that rising tone turns a sentence, however short, into a question. Tones in English will not change the meaning of the word, but they are indeed used all of the time. For example, assume you're repeately calling out Robert's name, thinking he's nearby and that he should hear you and answer. (m)Ro-(l)bert! . . (l)Ro-®bert! . . (h)Ro-(h)bert! The different tones indicate different levels of urgency. Were you to do this while calling your maid's name Malee, two times out of three she would not even recognize the word as her name! (If I understand this correctly, in Thai, the emotional dimension of a sentence is controlled by particles, such as "na," "ja," "si," etc., rather than by tones.) One of the most common mistake when farang speak Thai is to omit the "mai" question word and to use rising tone on the last word of the sentence, potentially rendering it completely incomprehensible. The only example where a tone can completely change the meaning in English is ®white (l)house [a house painted white] vs (h)White (h)House (the one in D.C.) but even that is more colloquial usage than anything else. One day I was stuck in a boring meeting listening to some Indian guy pontificate about the piece of software he wanted to sell us. I had my face arranged in the expression of appropriate attentivness and I was ready to daydream about Lek or Noi, but then I realized I could barely understand a word this guy said. I started listening for the patterns, and I realized that "Indian accent" is comprised two things. Consistent mispronunciation of certain sounds is one (of course, what is "mispronounciation" is very relative). But the other part, and just as important, is that they put stress, along with a slight rising tone, on either the last syllable in the word, on next to the last. This works for some words (e.g. "computer") but not for others (e.g. "monitor"). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boo Radley Posted January 2, 2002 Report Share Posted January 2, 2002 quote: Originally posted by Escape Rabbit: It just occurred to me that at least one word in English is tonal -- the word OK. Used as a response it has a flat tone. Used as a question it has a rising tone. Strange. Another example I can think of is the word 'Permit'. Pronounced PER (mid tone) MIT (mid tone) its a noun eg 'Can I see your permit please?' Pronounced PER (mid tone) MIT (falling tone) its a verb eg 'I won't permit it'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 2, 2002 Report Share Posted January 2, 2002 Post deleted by DoxyBlue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boo Radley Posted January 2, 2002 Report Share Posted January 2, 2002 Must admit, I'm not sure I followed eveything you said there... quote: That's not really tones, per se. It's emphasis In English, people can emphasize a word by using a falling tone eg "Come here!" (the 'here' is falling tone) so it is correct to talk about tones here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boo Radley Posted January 2, 2002 Report Share Posted January 2, 2002 quote: Originally posted by db_sed_aloha: ...But the tonal action and use or non-use of emphasis are just regional variations [accents] which don't really have direct effect on the meaning of the word... Another example I can think of, consider the two English words: 1. content (adj. state of well-being) and 2. content (n. the amount contained). In normal speech, English speakers distinguish these by giving them two different tones (or stress, as DB wants to call it). 1. con-tent (adj), (normal, falling) 2. con-tent (n), (falling, normal). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bibblies Posted January 3, 2002 Report Share Posted January 3, 2002 How about: Fuck(f) me(l) - what you hope to hear from a choice bird. Fuck(f) me(f) - expression of extreme suprise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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