<p>I'd like to know as much as possible about how tone contours (T2, T3, T4) are distributed along Mandarin/standard rhyme diphthongs, especially ai ei ao ou, with references to academic articles if possible.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-01T10:20:47.550Z
There are 9 "diphthong" finals in Chinese: ai ei ao ou ia ie ua uo üe. If these are not considered diphthongs then there aren't any. Assuming these are what you are referring to, tone contour(s) wouldn't differ dramatically across these than they would over any other words/characters of a same tone.
Mou某
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2018-01-01T13:28:13.517Z
@user3306356 ai ei ao ou necessarily have the first vowel in a tone different than the second one in T4 (HL)
GJC
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-02T02:35:54.743Z
What's your AOA on this? Learning tones? Pure curiosity? Something else? The idea that Chinese has diphthongs might not even be linguistically accurate, perhaps vowel + coda would be a more accurate representation. Splitting it up like this might cause greater complications for a language learner - and it might not be helpful for anything other than simple curiosity.
Mou某
<mandarin><tones><phonology><spoken>
Tone contours along diphthongs
# Tone contours along diphthongs

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-12-30)

I'd like to know as much as possible about how tone contours (T2, T3, T4) are distributed along Mandarin/standard rhyme diphthongs, especially ai ei ao ou, with references to academic articles if possible.

**Tags:** mandarin, tones, phonology, spoken

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: There are 9 "diphthong" finals in Chinese: ai ei ao ou ia ie ua uo üe. If these are not considered diphthongs then there aren't any. Assuming these are what you are referring to, tone contour(s) wouldn't differ dramatically across these than they would over any other words/characters of a same tone.  
> **username_0**: @user3306356 ai ei ao ou necessarily have the first vowel in a tone different than the second one in T4 (HL)  
> **username_1**: What's your AOA on this? Learning tones? Pure curiosity? Something else? The idea that Chinese has diphthongs might not even be linguistically accurate, perhaps vowel + coda would be a more accurate representation. Splitting it up like this might cause greater complications for a language learner - and it might not be helpful for anything other than simple curiosity.  

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## 0 answers

