Not quite. Tonality is just one part of differentiating words, like how in some languages (such as Mandarin) you differentiate between the aspirated “p” in English “pit” and the unaspirated “p” in English “spit”. (Put your hand in front of your mouth as you say each one and you’ll tell the difference!)
You’re right in saying that tone doesn’t really give lexical meaning in English (though it does provide meaning — such as with how a rising tone indicates a question). However, the problem is more about homophones — words that sound the same but mean different things. In English, an example of this would be the words “too” and “two”. Read identically, the words mean completely different things and one must rely on context to figure out what they mean, if they aren’t written down. However, in English, this isn’t a big problem, as words are not just down to single syllables — it’s harder to have a duplicated word if the word “antidisestablishmentarianism” is technically one word and valid English used in certain contexts. In Cantonese (and Mandarin — I can’t speak for all Sinitic languages) however, words are individual syllables. You group them at times to form "詞語“, which are basically multisyllable words, such as "電視“ — literally “electricity sight”, which means television. However, most of the time, we define words are single syllables, such as "我“, which means “me”, and "你“, which means “you”. "詞語“ are most common in speech, but particles and stuff are monosyllabic; both as in the grammatical particles such "同“ — meaning “and” in Cantonese — and in the literal chemistry particles such as hydrogen (氫) and oxygen (氧).
In linguistics, we would say that Cantonese is an “isolating” language, as each morpheme is its own word. Morphemes are the smallest blocks of meaning in language — for example, the word “antidisestablishmentarianism” can be broken into anti-, dis-, establish, -ment, -ar(y), -an, -ism. Isolating languages tend to have around 1 word per morpheme. English is an example of an “agglutinative” language, where you stick morphemes together to form words. The fact that each morpheme is 1 word, and that each word is 1 syllable, means that the meaning of a sentence can change dramatically by just changing one syllable, or even by changing how you read one syllable.
Thank you for the ramble, that was great. I finally understand why everyone thinks Cantonese is so hard. So many different combos and there are probably regional differences as well. We have a few words that can be mistaken for each other, so it almost seems quaint compared to monosyllables put together to form complex and different meanings done with different tones.
Yeah, like the word “同” there which means “and” sounds the same as "童“ (child) and "銅” (copper), as well as a bunch of uncommon words such as “瞳”, which I usually see combined with "孔” (a word for hole which you may have seen in Confucius’s name as his surname) to form "瞳孔“, meaning pupil (as in the eye, not student). And now imagine every single word could have stuff like that.
Not quite. Tonality is just one part of differentiating words, like how in some languages (such as Mandarin) you differentiate between the aspirated “p” in English “pit” and the unaspirated “p” in English “spit”. (Put your hand in front of your mouth as you say each one and you’ll tell the difference!)
You’re right in saying that tone doesn’t really give lexical meaning in English (though it does provide meaning — such as with how a rising tone indicates a question). However, the problem is more about homophones — words that sound the same but mean different things. In English, an example of this would be the words “too” and “two”. Read identically, the words mean completely different things and one must rely on context to figure out what they mean, if they aren’t written down. However, in English, this isn’t a big problem, as words are not just down to single syllables — it’s harder to have a duplicated word if the word “antidisestablishmentarianism” is technically one word and valid English used in certain contexts. In Cantonese (and Mandarin — I can’t speak for all Sinitic languages) however, words are individual syllables. You group them at times to form "詞語“, which are basically multisyllable words, such as "電視“ — literally “electricity sight”, which means television. However, most of the time, we define words are single syllables, such as "我“, which means “me”, and "你“, which means “you”. "詞語“ are most common in speech, but particles and stuff are monosyllabic; both as in the grammatical particles such "同“ — meaning “and” in Cantonese — and in the literal chemistry particles such as hydrogen (氫) and oxygen (氧).
In linguistics, we would say that Cantonese is an “isolating” language, as each morpheme is its own word. Morphemes are the smallest blocks of meaning in language — for example, the word “antidisestablishmentarianism” can be broken into anti-, dis-, establish, -ment, -ar(y), -an, -ism. Isolating languages tend to have around 1 word per morpheme. English is an example of an “agglutinative” language, where you stick morphemes together to form words. The fact that each morpheme is 1 word, and that each word is 1 syllable, means that the meaning of a sentence can change dramatically by just changing one syllable, or even by changing how you read one syllable.
also sorry for the ramble I’m autistic XD
Thank you for the ramble, that was great. I finally understand why everyone thinks Cantonese is so hard. So many different combos and there are probably regional differences as well. We have a few words that can be mistaken for each other, so it almost seems quaint compared to monosyllables put together to form complex and different meanings done with different tones.
Yeah, like the word “同” there which means “and” sounds the same as "童“ (child) and "銅” (copper), as well as a bunch of uncommon words such as “瞳”, which I usually see combined with "孔” (a word for hole which you may have seen in Confucius’s name as his surname) to form "瞳孔“, meaning pupil (as in the eye, not student). And now imagine every single word could have stuff like that.
I’ll go ahead and take Cantonese off my bucket list permanently.
No please, we’re already dying as a nation XD Sinicisation sucks :p