MLT/TMSS and Phonetogram

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MLT/TMSS and Phonetogram

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MLT/TMSS. is the Modern Literal Taiwanese composed of words of Taiwanese Modern Spelling System (TMSS).

TMSS. is the system of   writing Taiwanese words with Latin spelling, which fully manifests both the sound and the tone of   those   words.
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The sound and the tone of a syllable of a certain Taiwanese word are fixed as given by the spelling.     There are 18 oral consonants and 14   nasal consonants in Taiwanese sounds.      These combine with Taiwanese vowels.     The spelling of Taiwanese vowels includes the expression of each tone.     The simplest expression is the spelling of each fundamental tone, this is the spelling of Sound Proper, or of. Atonal Spelling.
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Oral consonants	b . c . ch . g . h . j . k . kh . l . m . n . p . ph . s . t . th . z . zh
Nasal consonants	cv . chv . gv . hv . kv . khv . pv . phv . sv . tv . thv . zv . zhv . v
Atonal vowels	a . e . i . o . o . u . ai . au . ia . io . iu . iau . oa . oai . oe . ui . am . an . ang . eng . im . iam . in . iang . iong . ien . om . oan . ong . un

From each Sound Proper, seven Tonal Spellings are constructed.    Each tone is recognized by the characteristics of its note, which appears in its pitch and duration.    (A word of a certain tone may be pronounced louder or softer for the same effect, so the "loudness" is not the base for tone discrimination.)
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Tones of a Monosyllable Sound Proper give, therefore, up to seven words of different meanings.    In many cases, not all of these seven words are with actual meanings in ordinary Taiwanese.    For instance, the sound proper "goa" gives rise to seven Tonal Spellings of goa, goaf, goaa, goax, goar, goaq, and goah, but only "goa(outside)" and "goar(I)" are by theirselves meaningful.   Other five spellings may only appear in spellings of multisyllable words.
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Tonal Spellings (for goa)	. .goa . . . . goaf goaa . . . . goax goar .. . . goaq goah
Kind of Tone	. . Fundamental .Raised Bend . Pushed-down . Pushed-up Lower stop Higher stop
Countour maps of sound wave (pitch~time) and Representative diagrams
High-low dots on Chinese character	..
Phonetogram	. goa. . . . g^oa. . goa^a . . . . g_oa g^oa+ .. . . . . g_oaq g^oah
After tone-change	.g_oa. . . . . goa. goa . . . . . g^oa+ g^oa . . . . . g^oaq g_oah

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Tone-change is a rather general phenomenon in Taiwanese Language. It occurs whenever a related word follows to this word. In an MLT sentence, each word is written with the TMSS as given in the dictionary, but some of them may change its tone in accordance with the rule of tone-change when the sentence is read. For an multi-syllable word, the tone-change occurs to the last syllable only, e.g., the last syllable "~si" of the word "mxsi" changes tone from "fundamental tone" to "pushed-down tone". Such a tone-change is illustrated by the Phonetogram if neccesary. Thus, the phonetogram of the sentence "Goar mxsi hagsefng." is given as [ g^oa+ !_ms_i h_ags^eng ] while the phonetogram of "mxsi" is originally [ !_msi ].
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Phonetogram is the diagramatic phonetics for Taiwanese language. It sets the relative position of the sound proper of each vowel in accordance with its pitch characteristiics, either "medium", "high", or "low". For the word with tone-change is given with a colored vowel as shown above. Since the occurence of tone-change is quite a difficult thing to explain, it is recommended to utilize phonetogram to teach foreigners to read MLT sentences.

In the old days, pupils in the school were taught to write a dot beside the Chinese character if the character is to be read with "high pitch" or with "low pitch". This is the practice of High-low dots. This practice is equivalent to the nowadays' method of Phonetogram.
< Consonants (TMSS vs. Phonetogram) >

TMSS

Phonetogram

TMSS

chv

khv

phv

thv

zhv

Phonetogram

tsv

< Selected Tonal Vowels (TMSS vs. Phonetogram) >

TMSS

Phonetogram

!^a

!^e

!ⁱ

!^o

!^u

!a^a

!e^e

!i^i

!o^o

!u^u

TMSS

Phonetogram

!_a

!_e

!_i

!_o

!_u

!^a+

!^e+

!ⁱ⁺

!^o+

!^u+

!_aq

!_eq

!_iq

!_uq

!_oq

!_uq

TMSS

iau

iaf

iaw

oaf

Phonetogram

!^ah

!^eh

!^ih

!^oh

!^uh

!ai

!au

!ia

!iau

!oa

!ui

!^ai

!^au

!^ia

!^iau

!^oa

!^ui

TMSS

eng

ong

oan

arm

erng

irn

orng

oarn

urn

Phonetogram

!am

!eng

!in

!ong

!oan

!un

!^am+

!^eng+

!ⁱⁿ⁺

!^ong+

!^oan+

!^un+

!_ab

!^ap

!_eg

!^ek

!_id

!^it

MLT/TMSS and Phonetogram by Liim Keahioong (2002/2/25)