User:Bukkia/sandboxVIII

Tones

All vowels, with the exception of the mid-central phoneme [ə], make a distinction among five different tones. The tone is a clearly distinctive feature:

na - nâ
star - pure

Using the vowel [a] as an example, the tones, and their graphic transcription, are:

• a: [a˧], mid tone.
• á: [a˧˥], rising tone.
• à: [a˧˩], falling tone.
• â: [a˧˥˧], rising-falling or apical tone.
• ǎ: [a˥˧˥], falling-rising or bottom tone.

The mid tone is usually regarded as a neutral tone, not being graphically expressed by any diacritic mark. The rising and the falling tones are regarded as linear tones. The rising-falling and the falling-rising tones are rearded as spike tones. This distinction is relevant for stress positioning.

Tone variations are abundant among dialects, both diachronically and synchronically. Generally speaking, however, five tonal types are always distinguished.