basic pinyin question

urbandweller
 December 01, 2008, 01:38 AM posted in General Discussion

What determines the placement of the tone mark? Why is it over certain letters and not over others?? does it have something to do with pronounciation of the word?

can someone please clarify for me?

This was explained to me a long time ago but i dont remember.

Thanks in advance.

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RJ
 December 01, 2008, 02:18 AM

The rules for determining on which vowel the tone mark appears when there are multiple vowels are as follows:

  1. First, look for an "a" or an "e". If either vowel appears, it takes the tone mark. There are no possible pinyin syllables that contain both an "a" and an "e".
  2. If there is no "a" or "e", look for an "ou". If "ou" appears, then the "o" takes the tone mark.
  3. If none of the above cases hold, then the last vowel in the syllable takes the tone mark.

(y and w are not considered vowels for these rules.)

The reasoning behind these rules is in the case of diphthongs and triphthongs, i, u, and ü (and their orthographic equivalents y and w when there is no initial consonant) are considered medial glides rather than part of the syllable nucleus in Chinese phonology. The rules ensure that the tone mark always appears on the nucleus of a syllable.

Another way to find a proper vowel for a tone mark is to apply the tone mark in the following order: "a", "e", "o", "i", "u", except for "iu", in which case "u" takes the tone mark.

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urbandweller
 December 01, 2008, 06:34 AM

excellent! Thanks RJ. This is exactly the info i needed. I will copy this into my notes so i dont forget it this time!!

-AD