Chinese Tone System

• Four phonological tones: 1: H_H tone 2: L-H Tone 3: L-L tone 4: H-L

• Neutral tone is decided by the preceding tone: H or L. Some words with neutral tone syllable has different meaning from the normal stress words. Such as: “ (duck head) ” and “ ( little girl), the second syllable is neutral tone ”

• Tone sandhi rule for Standard Chinese tone 3 + tone3 -> tone 2+tone 3