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OUTSTANDING DlSSERTATIONS IN LINGUISTICS
Edited by
Laurence HornYale UniversityA ROUTLEDGE SERIES

OUTSTANDING DlSSERTATIONS IN LINGUISTICS
LAURENCE HORN, General Editor
THE SYNCHRONIC AND DIACHRONIC
PHONOLOGY OF EJECTIVES
Paul D.Fallon
GRAMMATICAL FEATURES AND THE
ACQUISITION OF REFERENCE
A Comparative Study of Dutch and Spanish
Sergio Baauw
AUDITORY REPRESENTATIONS IN
PHONOLOGY
Edward S.Flemming
THE TYPOLOGY OF PARTS OF
SPEECH SYSTEMS
The Markedness of Adjectives
David Beck
THE EFFECTS OF PROSODY ON
ARTICULATION IN ENGLISH
Taehong Cho
PARALLELISM AND PROSODY IN THE
PROCESSING OF ELLIPSIS SENTENCES
Katy Carlson
PRODUCTION, PERCEPTION, AND
EMERGENT PHONOTACTIC PATTERNS
A Case of Contrastive Palatalization
Alexei Kochetov
RADDOPPIAMENTO SINTATTICO IN ITALIAN
A Synchronic and Diachronic Cross-Dialectical
Study
Doris Borrelli
PRESUPPOSITION AND DISCOURSE
FUNCTIONS OF THE JAPANESE PARTICLE
Mo
Sachiko Shudo
THE SYNTAX OF POSSESSION IN JAPANESE
Takae Tsujioka
COMPENSATORY LENGTHENING
Phonetics, Phonology, Diachrony
Darya Kavitskaya
THE EFFECTS OF DURATION AND
SONORITY ON CONTOUR TONE
DlSTRIBUTION
A Typological Survey and Formal Analysis
Jie Zhang
EXISTENTIAL FAITHFULNESS
A Study of Reduplicative TETU, Feature
Movement, and Dissimilation
Caro Struijke
PRONOUNS AND WORD ORDER IN OLD
iii
ENGLISH
With Particular Reference to the Indefinite
Pronoun Man
Linda van Bergen
ELLIPSIS AND WA-MARKING IN JAPANESE
CONVERSATION
John Fry
WORKING MEMORY IN SENTENCE
COMPREHENSION
Processing Hindi Center Embeddings
Shravan Vasishth
INPUT-BASED PHONOLOGICAL
ACQUISITION
Tania S. Zamuner
ORIGINS OF PREDICATES
Evidence from Plains Cree
Tomio Hirose
CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF WORD
STRUCTURE
Jennifer Hay
INTERACTIONS BETWEEN MARKEDNESS
AND FAITHFULNESS CONSTRAINTS IN
VOWEL SYSTEMS
Viola Miglio
THE PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY OF
GUTTURALS
A Case Study from Ju \ ’hoansi
Amanda Miller-Ockhuizen
MANIFESTATIONS OF GENERICITY
Yael Greenberg
TRUE TO FORM
Rising and Falling Declaratives as Questions in English
Christine Gunlogson
VIETNAMESE TONE A NEW ANALYSIS
Andrea Hoa Pham
Routledge New York & London

Published in 2003 by
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Published in Great Britain by
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
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Copyright © 2003 by Taylor & Francis Books, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form
or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pham, Andrea Hoa.
Vietnamese tone: a new analysis / by Andrea Hoa Pham.
p. cm. — (Outstanding dissertations in linguistics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 415 96762 7 (hb)
1.Vietnamese language—Intonation. 2.Vietnamese language—Phonetics. I. Title.
II. Series.
PL4373.P43 2003
495.2′216—dc21
2003046886
ISBN 0-203-50008-3 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-57881-3 (Adobe eReader Format)

In memory of my parents
Contents
Foreword ix
Acknowledgments x
1 INTRODUCTION 2
Vietnamese 2
Features and Complexity 3
Overview 4
2 PHONOLOGICAL ISSUES 6
The Traditional Classification 6
The Mismatch Problem 7
A Structural Classification 11
Supporting Evidence 16
3 THE TONAL INVENTORY 23
Six Tones or Eight? 23
An Eight-tone System 27
The Additional Tones 29
4 THE ACOUSTICS OF TONE 34
Previous Studies 34
A New Acoustic Study 36
Summary 55
5 THE PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY OF TONE 59
Resolving the Mismatch Problem 59
Tonal Shape and Phonation Types 63
The Phonetics of Tone 75
Summary 55
6 THE DOMAIN OF TONE 84
The Vietnamese Syllable 84
The Significance of Rhyme 86
7 CONCLUSION 95
Appendix 96
Bibliography 116
viii
Index 119
Foreword
This book is a ‘reader friendly’ version of my 2001 doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of Toronto (Hoa Pham,
Vietnamese Tone: Tone is not Pitch). There are no substantive changes only those of an editorial nature. I have given the
original dissertation a new title and also made some changes in the internal titles. There is some slight reordering of material
and some pruning to eliminate various redundancies. There are also stylistic changes throughout. However, all the original
data and claims remain as they were.
This version was completed during the first part of a post-doctoral fellowship at York University, Toronto, and later during
my first year at the University of Florida. I would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada for that fellowship and the University of Florida for its financial support.
Andrea Hoa Pham
University of Florida
Gainesville
Acknowledgments
I was very lucky to work under the supervision of Keren Rice. I appreciate her devotion of time, energy, and thoughtful
insights to my work. What made me deeply grateful to her was that among my early incoherent ideas and broken data, she
spotted a good seed, picked it out, and gave it great care until it blossomed. Nor could the thesis have been written in time
without her incredibly fast feedback. I am also grateful to all other members of my thesis committee: Hank Rogers for his
great support, both academic and technical; Ron Smyth for his help with the pilot study and useful comments later, and his
arrangement for a lovely French restaurant lunch after the defense; Peter Avery for helping me from the very early stage of
the thesis; and Parth Bhatt for spending time to discuss my experiment with special enthusiasm. Peter and Ron also helped me
considerably with the writing. I am also grateful to my external examiner, Moira Yip, for her fruitful comments. I owe Bill
Idsardi for his valuable suggestions, especially with the experiment. I would also like to thank all consultants who were very
generous in giving me their time.
My sincere thanks also go to Diane Massam for being always so comfortable to talk to; to Jack Chambers for the firm
encouragement I could always rely on, and to Nick Hostettler for helping me with the formatting. Special thanks go to a friend
who did a great job of editing and wants to remain anonymous. The book would not have been in this shape without that help.
The financial support for my research came from various sources: Ontario Graduate Studies Scholarship, Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada (752–2000–1577), School of Graduate Travel Grant, David Chu Travel
Fellowship, General Research Grant from the linguistics department, SSHRC Grant to Professors Rice and Dresher for the
Phonology Project, and a University of Toronto Foundation Graduate Award.
I would not have survived the program without my friends in Toronto and Vietnam. I cannot name them all, but am
grateful for all the support I have received: an encouraging smile in the computer room, a Tango in a milonga, Vietnamese
materials which I did not have access to, a pointer toward a possibly related article, a comforting shoulder, and a take-a-break-
trip when desperately needed.
I thank my sisters, Vinh, Hi′ n, Hi′ n, Ph′ ′c and brother Bình, for sheltering me with their love and great food during my
field work in Vietnam, and my son, Andrew Nguyen, for his love, trust and companionship.
Finally, my deepest gratitude to my late parents—for giving me life—and nourishing my spirit. This book is dedicated to
them.
VlETNAMESE TONE
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
A very common view in the literature on tone languages is that pitch height is the primary and sometimes only phonetic
correlate of tone. This view creates a problem in Vietnamese, namely a mismatch between the phonetic realization of tone and
its phonological patterning in reduplication. Is pitch height really the primary phonetic correlate of tone? If ‘tone’ refers to a
contrastive phonological category, that category may not in fact be pitch height. It may be that pitch height is not a basic tonal
feature and that pitch register is not an adequate phonological feature for representing Vietnamese tones. The research to be
reported here shows that the laryngeal features of creakiness and breathiness are primary in signaling tone and that pitch
height is derived from these features and from features describing tonal shape.
The complexities of Vietnamese tones offer fertile ground to study the nature of tone. First, tones are lexical in Vietnamese
and every syllable must bear a tone. Second, tone is not affected by neighboring tones in any environment since there is no
tone sandhi. Finally, the tonal inventory of Vietnamese is rich with either six or eight contrastive tones depending on which
analysis the researcher adopts.
In order to examine the various issues outlined above it is necessary to find answers to a number of questions. What are the
features of tones in Vietnamese? In a language with such a rich tonal inventory are tones organized structurally? If they are, what
is the internal structure of tonal features? What are the phonetic features of tones? How closely do these phonetic features
resemble the phonological features?
In the linguistic literature on Vietnamese the question of why a tone patterns in a particular way is seldom posed. For
example, in one dialect tone A neutralizes to tone B; however, no consideration is given as to why A does not neutralize to C.
Tonal features are never clearly defined according to phonological patterning; rather, they are determined by their phonetic
properties. Moreover, when tonal features are discussed, the relationships among such features are never addressed. Rather,
tones are represented as bundles of unorganized features such as [high], [tense], [flat], and [glottalic], e.g., Cu et al. 1977,
Thompson 1965, Doan 1977, Vo 1997, and Alves 1997.
Finally, so far as the phonetics of tones is concerned, the assumption in previous research is that the primary phonetic
correlate of tone is pitch height. However, tones in Vietnamese also have laryngeal realizations of breathiness and creakiness.
There is no detailed study of the phonetic constants associated with tones.
This research proposes and justifies a hierarchical representation of the structure of Vietnamese tones that captures their
markedness relations. The model accounts for the patterning of tones in reduplication and for several types of tonal
neutralization found in the language. The research also provides phonetic evidence that the phonation properties of creakiness
and breathiness are important phonological features of Vietnamese tones and demonstrates how tonal features are realized
phonetically. This is the first occasion in the literature on Vietnamese in which both the phonetics and the phonology of tones
are unified within a single model.
Vietnamese
Vietnamese is a Viet-Muong language in the Mon-Khmer group within the Austroasiatic family. Viet-Muong is one of nine
subgroups in the Mon-Khmer group. Among the approximately 80 million speakers of Austroasiatic languages, 65 million
people spoke Vietnamese in 1988 (Tran 1999:131). It is now spoken by about 78 million people in Vietnam and by about two
million speakers living all over the world, with half of this number in North America.
The dialects of Vietnamese can be classified into several different major groups depending on the method of classification.
For example, a classification based on final consonants divides Vietnamese into two major groups: North Vietnamese and
South Vietnamese (Gordina and Bystrov 1970 cited from Hoang Thi Chau 1989 and Pham 1998). Using tones, Vu 1982,
Hoang Cao Cuong 1989, and Hoang Thi Chau 1989 agree that there are three major dialect groups: North Vietnamese, Central
Vietnamese, and South Vietnamese. Northern dialects have the largest tonal inventory and are the major focus of this research
because Hanoi, one of Northern dialects, is considered to be the standard dialect. (1) gives the overall syllable pattern of all
Vietnamese dialects.
INTRODUCTION 3
(1)
(3)
Since the focus of this research is on the final segments, the initial consonant is simplified as C. C stands for any consonant
element. V can be a short or long vowel or a diphthong with an on-glide. G represents an off-glide, N a nasal consonant, and T
a voiceless stop. Each syllable must bear a tone. Only tone and V are obligatory in the syllable.
Whereas any consonant can occur in initial position, only a limited number of consonants can occur in final position. Since
the manner of final consonants is important in the work reported here (2) gives the full inventory of finals.
(2)
labial alveolar palatal labio-velar velar
Obstruents p t c kp k
Nasals m n ′m ′
Glides w j
The inventory in (2) consists of nasals, obstruents, and two glides. All final obstruents are voiceless stops. Stops are
unaspirated or inaudibly released. Palatal, labio-velar, and velar are allophones, determined by the quality of the preceding
vowel.
Features and Complexity

This study follows Clements 1985, McCarthy 1988, and others in assuming that features are organized in a hierarchical
configuration. The hierarchical structure allows a set of features to undergo certain phonological processes without affecting
features of another group. Elements that pattern together as a natural class are dominated by the same organizing node. (3)
illustrates the working model. R is a root node, X and Y are organizing nodes, and z and p are content nodes.
The sisterhood relationship between the two organizing nodes X and Y in (3) allows a process to affect X without affecting
Y. Markedness itself is a measure of the way in which the relative complexity of the system is encoded (Archangeli 1988).
The theory of Contrastive Specification (Steriade 1987, Mester and Itô 1989, and Avery and Rice 1989) in the particular
version adopted here (after Avery and Rice 1989) holds that all features are monovalent. A feature must be present underlyingly
if it is contrastive. Non-contrastive or unmarked features, which play no role in the phonology of a language, are absent from
underlying representations. Moreover, while the unmarked features are generally absent underlyingly, organizing nodes are
present in an underlying representation if they define a property inherent in the segment (following Rice 1993).
A feature must be present underlyingly if it produces contrasts in the system. Markedness can be overridden by contrast
within an inventory on the assumption (Rice and Avery 1993) that structure is elaborated under pressure from the phonology
to contrast two sounds. As contrasts are introduced, more complex structures are added to the existing less complex ones
already in the inventory. The more marked a segment the more structure it has, e.g., Avery and Rice 1989, Rice and Avery
1991, Kaye et al 1985. The complexity of structural representations, therefore, increases as the number of contrasts in the
inventory increases.
There are two types of complexity (see Dresher and van der Hulst 1998): local and non-local. A node C has local
complexity if it branches when others do not, as in (a) in (4), or if C has an immediate dependent when others do not, as in (b).
The second type of complexity is non-local and addresses issues concerning the internal structure of the daughters of a
node. For example, in (5), node C has non-local complexity if C dominates D and D dominates E and F, as in (a). It is simple
if C dominates D and D dominates E but does not branch, as in (b).
Within non-local complexity, a structure with more specified features in a hierarchical system, either vertically or horizontally,
counts as more complex than a structure with fewer specified features; consequently, (a) in (6) is vertically more complex
than (b). The difference between the two is that (a) has an extra dependent feature G under F.
In (7), (a) is horizontally more complex than (b). The only difference between the two is that in (a), both D and E have
dependents while in (b) only D has a dependent.
4 VIETNAMESE TONE: A NEW ANALYSIS
(4)
(5)
(6) Vertical complexity
Default rules act as a phonetic implementation component for an underspecified feature (Rice and Avery 1989). A
delinking rule serves to delink the content nodes in a neutralization environment. In Vietnamese, delinking of either the
laryngeal or the contour features of tone occurs to yield unmarked features or structures. For example, a more complex, i.e., more
marked, tone is reduced to a less complex, i.e., less marked, one.
Overview
This research study is organized as follows. Chapter Two presents a proposal for the structure of Vietnamese tones based on
markedness and provides phonological evidence for that structure. Markedness of tones is based on their complexity, which is
evaluated according to tonal patterning. Evidence for the markedness of tones is drawn mainly from tonal neutralization. The
chapter analyzes the six tones that occur in the same environment, namely sonorant-final syllables. It also introduces the
classification of tones in the traditional literature and the mismatch problem that this classification creates. Chapter Three
discusses the size of the tonal inventory, either six tones or eight. Evidence is advanced to support the eight-tone hypothesis
and arguments are given for the representation and markedness of the two tones that occur in obstruent-final syllables.
INTRODUCTION 5
(7)
Chapter Four deals with the phonetics of tones. It reviews the acoustic experiments in the literature and presents an experimental
study of tones produced by speakers of the Northern dialect. It examines various aspects of tones: fundamental frequency,
shape, length, linear portion, and phonation types such as creakiness and breathiness. One of the most important findings is
the instability of the fundamental frequency, i.e., F0. The F0 of pitch varies from speaker to speaker, from token to token, and
from form to form. However, phonation types are the most stable feature across speakers and tokens. Another finding is that
the end point of a tone is the most crucial portion of a tone for differentiating that tone from others, except in curved tones
where the middle part is crucial. Chapter Five presents the implications of the phonetic results for the phonology of tones.
Phonation type is the primary phonetic correlate of tone in Vietnamese. Pitch height is not constant but is predictable on the
basis of phonation type. Use of the phonation features of creakiness and breathiness as laryngeal features eliminates the
mismatch between the phonetics and phonology of tone in reduplication. The chapter also includes a discussion of the
phonetics of tone and shows how the phonology maps onto the phonetics. Chapter Six discusses the domain of tones and
shows that in Vietnamese the domain of tone is not the syllable, nucleus, or mora. It is smaller than a syllable and larger than
a nucleus; it is the rhyme. Chapter Seven provides a very brief summary of the major findings.
CHAPTER 2
Phonological Issues
This chapter is concerned with the phonology of Vietnamese tones and focuses on their structural representations and their
markedness with respect to one another. The evidence for the markedness of different tones is drawn mainly from tonal
neutralization in various phonological domains. The chapter provides background information on the distribution of tones and
their phonetic descriptions, proposes a hierarchical structure for tones and gives evidence for the structure, reviews tonal
representations in the traditional literature, and identifies some of the problems in those accounts.
The Traditional Classification

Vietnamese has eight tones (see also Chapter Three) ngang, huyen, sac1, nang1, hoi, nga, sac2, and nang2 and (8) shows
their distribution. Ngang, huyen, sac1, nang 1, hoi, and nga occur in open or sonorant-final syllables. Only sac2 and nang2
occur in stop-closed syllables. Chapter Three discusses the phonological status of these tones and Chapter Four provides
phonetic details.
(8)
Syllable types e.g. ngang huyen sac1 nang1 hoi nga sac2 nang2
CV la + + + + + +
CVG la:w + + + + 4 +
CVN l′ n + + + + + +
CVT la:t + +
(9) provides a set of minimal pairs for these tones. The Vietnamese orthography is in the third column. The orthography
uses only six diacritics: sac1 and sac2 share the same diacritic. Likewise, nang1 and nang2 share the same diacritic.
(9)
Tone Phonetics Orthography Gloss
(ngang) l′ n lân unicorn/neighbor/near
(huyen) l′ n l′ n turn/time/layer/to totter away
(sac1) l′ n l′ n to surpass/ to jostle
(nang1) l′ n lân to tuck/to defraud
(hoi) l′ n l′ n to slip away, to escape
(nga) l′ n l′ n crack-brained/to confuse
(sac2) 1′ t l′ t unstable, unreliable (l′ t l′)
(nang2) l′ t lât to overturn/to capsize/chestnut
This chapter is concerned with only the first six tones, i.e., ngang, huyen, sac1, nang1, hoi, and nga, since they occur in the
same environments.
Figure 1 shows the pitch tracks of the six tones in the open syllable [ta] from Nguyen and Edmondson 1997. (In this figure
the transcribed vowel carries a diacritic for tone.) Tones are generally presented in pairs for both phonetic and phonological
reasons. The pair in 1(a) are the level tones ngang and huyen. Ngang is high in pitch and huyen is low. The pair in 1(b) are
sac1 and nang1. Sac1 is a high rising tone and nang1 is a low falling tone ending with a glottal stop. The pair in 1(c) are nga
and hoi. Nga is a high falling-rising tone broken by a glottal stop in the middle of the tone. Hoi is a low falling-rising tone.
VIETNAMESE TONE: A NEW ANALYSIS 7
Figure 1. Six tones in the open syllable [ta] (from Nguyen and Edmondson 19 1997:6)
These phonetic descriptions yield two parameters that are generally used to describe Vietnamese tones, e.g., Doan 1977 and
Hoang Cao Cuong 1989. The first refers to tonal shape: level (ngang, huyen); contour (sac1, nang1); or curve (hoi, nga). The
second involves tonal height: high (ngang, sac, and nga) and low (huyen, nang, and hoi). These tones are thus generally
classified as in (10).
(10)
level contour curve
high ngang sac1 nga
low huyen nang1 hoi
The Mismatch Problem

The usual representation of tones in the literature on Vietnamese is one based on tonal shape and tonal height. The assumption
that register is equivalent to pitch is also common. The term ‘contour’ in the traditional literature clearly refers to tonal shape.
Tones are thus classified according to their pitch and shape. (11) summarizes the classification of Vietnamese tones found in
Doan 1977, Vuong and Hoang 1994, and Hoang Thi Chau 1989. The first parameter is the tonal shape or contour. According
to this parameter, ‘level’ indicates that the tone is basically flat. The level tones are ngang and huyen. The non-level tones are
sac1, nang1, hoi, and nga. Among these tones, nga and hoi are broken, i.e., the tone goes down then rises to make a curved
shape, and sac1 and nang1 are nonbroken, i.e., the tone either goes down or rises (see Chapter Four for details). This view of
contour is consistent with the one adopted in this study. The second parameter is tonal height, which divides tones into two
registers defined by pitch: high register consists of the high tones ngang, sac1, and nga, and low register consists of the low
tones huyen, nang1, and hoi. The justification for [high] and [low] in (11) is discussed in Chapter Four.
(11) Traditional classification of tones according to tonal shape and height

level non-level
non-broken broken
High ngang sac1 nga
Low huyen nang1 hoi
Evidence for the two registers high and low is drawn from phonetics, e.g., Doan 1977 and Vuong and Hoang 1994.
Evidence for tonal contour comes from tonal patterning in poetry, i.e., level tones form one group and non-level tones form
the other group. These sources are briefly mentioned as evidence for such a classification but no systematic accounts are
given. However, as we will see, the situation is different in reduplication.
The classification in (11) is standard with the proviso that the terms there are used primarily to classify tones and not to
specify the features of tones. (12) provides an alternative classification.
(12)
Unmarked register: ngang sac1 hoi
Marked register: huyen nang1 nga
The major difference between the traditional classification in (11) and the classification in (12) is that the latter is based on
a phonological patterning in which hoi forms a class with ngang and sac1 in terms of register and nga forms a class with
huyen and nang1. In the traditional proposal, the registers of hoi and nga are reversed. (Evidence for (12) is presented later in
this chapter.)
Tonal features are also proposed in the literature, features such as glottalization, length, tense, and lax, but no evidence is
provided. For example,
(13) shows tone features from Thompson 1965 and Alves 1997. (13) also assumes that there are only six tones in
Vietnamese.
(13)
Tone high tense glottalic short
ngang + − − +/−
huyen − − − +/−
sac + + − +
nang − + + +
hoi − + − −
nga + + + −
(13) uses tonal height to classify tonal registers. One problem with (13) is that these features do not group tones into natural
classes. For example, ngang, sac, and nga are grouped under the feature [high] but they do not pattern together as a group. In
addition, although nang and nga have the feature [glottalic], they do not pattern as a pair.
Hoang 1986 argues that two parameters alone, pitch height and contour, cannot account for tone languages such as
Vietnamese, whose tones developed from final consonants (see Chapter Three for details) and still show some relic of those
segments through glottal stop or breathiness. In an attempt to incorporate phonation types as tone features, he proposes the
tonal features in (14). This proposal classifies tones based on the diachronic hypothesis that a tone which developed from a
final consonant may still retain some properties of that segment. For example, the glottal stop in the tone nang1 is treated as a
relic of the historical final glottal stop. In (14), the phonation column indicates the presence or absence of glottalization or
pharyngealization in a tone. The second column indicates whether the tone falls within its register, i.e., the pitch contour does
(15)
not cross two registers. The last column indicates the pitch height for register features. While Hoang classifies eight tones
according to their phonetic properties, the phonological status of the sac and nang tones is left unclear.
(14)
Tone phonation falls in one register low
ngang 1 − + −
huyen 2 + + +
nga 3 + − −
hoi 4 − − +
sac1 5 − − −
nang1 6 + − +
sac2 5’ + + −
nang2 6’ + + +
The features in (14) are classified phonetically. Although Hoang argues that this classification of tones agrees with the
traditional treatment in music and in the frequency of occurrence of tones in reduplicative forms, he provides no evidence. He
emphasizes that (14) is based primarily on phonation, and reflects the historical development of tones. However, like the
classification in (13), these features do not account for the major patterning of tones in the language, since nga, nang1, sac2,
and nang2 do not pattern as a group although, according to the classification in (14), they share the same feature for
phonation. Hoang recognizes that it is problematic to use pitch height to classify Vietnamese tones because while some tones
fall completely within one register (high or low), other tones fall across the two registers. Chapter Five takes up this issue
again.
All the featural accounts discussed in this section fail in one major way: the proposals do not capture classes that the
phonology requires to be natural. Other recent works use feature geometry to represent tones as constituents but do not
provide evidence for the organization of tones. For example, using the features in (14), Hoang 1986 suggests the feature geometry
in (15) for Vietnamese tones. The numbers refer to the tones as follows: 1 is ngang, 2 is huyen, 3 is nga, 4 is hoi, 5 is sac1, 5’
is sac2, 6 is nang1, and 6’ is nang2. In the abbreviations ‘ng’ stands for ngang, ‘hu’ for huyen, ‘sa1’ and ‘sa2’ for sac1 and
sac2, respectively, and ‘na’ and ‘na2’ for nang1 and nang2, respectively.
However, these features do not group tones in the way that they pattern in the language. For example, there is no evidence
that 3, 6, 5’, and 6’ (nga, nang1, sac2, and nang2) in the top row pattern as a group or that 5 and 4 (sac1 and hoi) in the last
row pattern together as a pair, and so on.
It is problematic to use only phonetic features such as length, glottalic, tenseness, and so on to classify tones. For example,
the feature [glottalic] groups nga and nang1 into a class that does not reflect their phonological patterning. In an attempt to
avoid the difficulty with the feature [glottalic], Ngo 1984 suggests another feature, one that makes use of the tonal shape, namely
[concave], to group hoi with nga. In this system, tonal representation is simply a reflection of the pitch shape of tones or their
contour (1984:75). (16) shows features of tones in this account.
(16)
ngang huyen sac nang hoi nga
Concave − − − − + +
Contour − − + + + +
(17)
ngang huyen sac nang hoi nga

High + − + − + −
Using the tonal features in (16), Ngo represents tones hierarchically in a binary branching model, as in (17). This model
uses [concave] at the highest level to dominate tonal contour. The feature [±high] is a dependent of [contour]. The high tone
hoi is [+concave, +contour, +high]. The low tone nga is [+concave, +contour, −high]. According to Ngo, this is a
morphological representation, since hoi is phonetically low but morphologically high and nga is phonetically high but
morphologically low.
There is an unexplained gap in the model: the absence of two tones under [+concave, −contour]. This gap is also seen in
Doan 1977:107, who explains that in reality there are no tones which are ‘even’ but ‘broken’ (i.e., [−contour] and [+concave]
in Ngo 1984). Using binary branching with three different levels, the model seems to be appropriate for an eight-tone system
because the combinations give eight possible terminal nodes, but it is not completely filled. The two tones ngang and huyen
should occupy the two unspecified nodes. Authors such as Burton 1992, Avery 1983, and Ngo 1984 agree about their
unmarkedness because of their frequency, their patterning in reduplication, and borrowings. However, ngang and huyen do not
occupy these nodes. Furthermore, this model does not capture the distributional fact that the four tones ngang, huyen, hoi, and
nga occur only in sonorant-final syllables.
Although the above proposals classify tones into pairs, there are no relationships between these pairs; therefore, the tonal
pairs appear to exist as autonomous components within the tonal system. Accordingly, there are no adequate representations
that can account for the various patterns of tones in Vietnamese. The division of tonal registers in (11) and the assumption
that register is tonal height also cause a serious mismatch between the phonetics and phonology of tones. It creates a problem
in reduplication with respect to hoi and nga, one which the research reported here will resolve through proposing the
alternative classification given in (12) above.
In the traditional view tones pattern in two registers: ngang and sac1 pattern together and huyen and nang1 pattern
together. Ngang and sac1 are high tones and huyen and nang1 are low tones. The phonetics of these tones predicts their
patterning, i.e., their phonetic classification underlies their phonological classification. Given this patterning, nga, a
phonetically a high tone, should pattern phonologically with ngang and sac1, and hoi, a phonetically low tone, should pattern
with huyen and nang1. However, hoi and nga do not follow the predicted pattern. The patterning is as in (12). Many efforts
have been made to explain the unusual behavior of hoi and nga in reduplication. Some researchers, e.g., Doan 1977:123,
Hoang Thi Chau 1989:207, Vuong and Hoang 1994:100, and Nguyen and Edmondson 1997, look at historical developments
for an explanation of this phenomenon. They adopt Haudricourt’ s suggestion (1954) that hoi was historically a low tone and
nga a high tone, and they suggest that hoi and nga switched their registers during the evolution of tones. However, they do
not clarify how this happened.
Ngo 1984 and Burton 1992 propose abstract representations of tones to solve the problem with hoi and nga in reduplication.
For example, in order to account for the phonetics-phonology mismatch with hoi and nga, Ngo 1984:78 posits a Concave
Tone Reversal rule (18) that changes the phonological high tone hoi to a phonetic low tone and the phonological low tone nga
to a phonetic high tone. This rule has no theoretical motivation: there are apparently no languages in which a phonetically
back vowel patterns phonologically as if it were a front vowel or vice versa. Such a system would necessitate such a flip-flop
rule; (18) is highly suspicious at the very least.
Burton 1982 also examines the behavior of hoi and nga in reduplication and proposes (19) as a representation of
Vietnamese tones. Adopting Yip’s 1980 model, Burton uses upper case +HIGH/ -HIGH for Register and lower case h, 1, 1h
for contour features. In this model, each tonal pair shares the same feature for contour, i. e., both ngang and huyen are ‘1.’
They differ only in the register feature, i.e., +/− HIGH.
(19)
CONTOUR
REGISTER + HIGH A=1 (ngang) B=h (sac) C=lh (hoi)
− HIGH D=1 (huyen) E=h (nang) F=1h (nga)
(18)
(20) Flip-Flop rule
Burton adopts the view that sac2 and nang2 are variations of sac1 and nang1 in stop-final syllables (see Chapter Three).
Burton’s classification is abstract in that it groups hoi, a phonetic low tone, with phonetic high tones, and nga, a phonetic high
tone, with phonetic low tones. However, at the same time, he also claims that ‘Upper vs Lower pitch-range is exactly what
characterizes Register.’ Burton also classifies ‘contour features’ using both phonological and phonetic properties. (This issue
is further discussed in Chapter Five.)
As for tonal contour and following the theoretical approach of Yip 1980, Bao 1999b, and Duanmu 1990, Burton says that
hoi and nga are rising ‘lh.’ (Burton’s theory does not allow a dipping tone, i.e., ‘hlh.’) Burton treats the initial dip in these
tones as a phonetic effect. However, with respect to register, while arguing that ngang and sac are [+High] register and huyen
and nang are [−High] register because all are articulated in the upper and lower parts of their respective pitch-ranges, Burton
offers no evidence as to why hoi is [+High] and nga is [−High].
How does Burton account for the mismatch between hoi and nga? He proposes that hoi and nga must switch their register
to achieve the appropriate phonetic representations. He argues that the surface representations of hoi and nga result from an
interaction of two rules: Register Flip-Flop and Creakiness Acquisition, as in (20). Other authors have captured the fact that
hoi patterns phonologically with high register tones and nga with low register tones by suggesting that, diachronically, hoi
was a low tone that changed to a high tone. They must then assume that the phonology of reduplication makes no reference to
natural classes. Unlike these authors, Burton argues that hoi is synchronically [+High]. He explains the phonetic surfacing of
hoi as a high tone by a Flip-Flop rule that switches its register. Likewise, nga is underlyingly [−High] but surfaces as [+High]
by a Creakiness Acquisition rule to acquire the phonetic feature [creaky] and then by a Flip-Flop rule to switch its register.
Register Flip-Flop changes hoi from an underlying [+High] to surface [−High]. Consequently, Burton’s Flip-Flop rule is
equivalent to Ngo’s Concave Tone Reversal in (18); the major difference between these analyses is simply whether the tonal
switch is considered to be diachronic or synchronic.
It is quite clear that tonal features have been largely based on phonetics in the traditional literature on Vietnamese. These
features do not group tones into natural classes. However, the patterning in reduplication and neutralization shows that a
classification of tones that relies only on a phonetic interpretation of register as high and low is quite unsatisfactory since it
leads to the mismatch problem between the phonetics and phonology of the tones hoi and nga. The analyses based on this
type of classification must then account for the mismatch with an unnatural rule that switches the registers of these two tones.
A different approach to these issues is clearly warranted.
A Structural Classification
In the literature on tone, including standard works on phonetics, the terms ‘contour’ and ‘register’ are not at all well-defined.
Generally, ‘contour’ refers to tonal shape and ‘register’ to tonal height. For example, Pike 1948 divides tone languages into
two categories, register tone languages and contour tone languages, depending on which feature of pitch behavior is
significant in the language. Laver 1994:465 proposes three types of tone languages. The first type is the register tone system.
This is a system in which the relevant feature of word-identifying pitch behavior is the relative height of the syllabic pitches
within the speaker’s pitch-span. The second type is the contour tone system. This is a system in which the relevant feature is
less the relative height of the tone and more its shape or trajectory, together with its general placement in the speaker’s pitch-
span. The third type is a mixed register/contour tone system. This is a system in which the end point cannot be identified
directly with any of the level tones.
Representations of tones and tonal features almost invariably reflect the assumption that register is pitch. For example, Yip
1980 proposes two features for tone, as in (21): a feature [Upper] for register, and a feature [High] for tone. The feature
[Upper] is a binary feature, which, according to Snider 1999:152, is either high or low and indicates whether the tone is in the
higher or lower register.
(23)
(21)
Raised H H Mid Low
Register: Upper + + − −
Pitch: High + − + −
(Yip 1980)
Bao 1999b: 3 claims that register is the pitch level of a tone and contour is how the pitch behaves over the duration of the
tone-bearing unit so that register is static and contour is dynamic. Assuming that register is tonal pitch, Bao 1999a: 487
describes a phenomenon called ‘register harmony’ in tone sandhi in Chaozhou (Chinese) as follows: ‘the pitch height of the
sandhi tone—its register—is determined by the register of the following tone.’
The assumption that register is tonal pitch is also shared in work on African tone languages, e.g., Snider 1999. Clements
1981 proposes the representation of tones in (22). The register feature in the first row indicates that the tone is in the upper or
lower register and the pitch feature in the second row indicates the higher or lower tone within that register.
(22)
Raised High High Mid Low
Register: h h 1 1
Pitch: h 1 h 1
The concepts ‘register feature’ and ‘tone feature’ seem to include tonal height. The register feature indicates a pitch range,
usually divided into two registers, high and low. The tone feature refers to the pitch of that tone within its register, e.g., a high
tone in a low register is a low tone that is articulated at the highest point within the low register.
It is reasonable to assume that contour indicates tonal shape. However, register does not necessarily involve pitch height: it
can also be used to represent different phonation types, as in Chapter Five. Chapters Four and Five will also show that the
particular register feature that is needed to describe Vietnamese tone is a laryngeal feature.
Tonal features belong to a level of structure that is independent of segmental features, e.g., Leben 1973, Goldsmith 1976,
and Odden 1995, and there are two major features in tonal representation, namely Register and Contour. Register is not tonal
pitch but phonation type. Specifically, it refers to modal voice, creaky voice, and breathy voice. Chapters Four and Five
provide the phonetic evidence for this claim.
In the work reported here the term ‘contour’ refers to tonal shape: whether a tone is flat (level in tone) or whether there is
some movement during the course of the tone. Movement can be of two types. It can involve a single change of direction,
e.g., going up or down to make a rising or falling tone, or more than one change of direction, e.g., going down and then up to
make a falling-rising tone. Tonal contour, therefore, does not refer to tonal height, so a ‘level’ contour might be a ‘high’ or
‘low’ tone, or a ‘falling’ tone might be ‘high’ in the pitch range. Tonal contour refers to the shape of the tone.
In Vietnamese the structural relationship between Register and Contour is one of sisterhood not dominance. The model
(similar to that in Bao 1999b) is shown in (23). In it Contour and Register are two organizing nodes dominated by a tone node.
This model predicts that some phonological processes can affect the whole tone (T) while others may affect only Register
but not Contour, or vice versa. The following pages provide evidence from neutralization for the independence of Contour
and Register features, for constituency in the feature geometry of tones, and for a hierarchic arrangement of tones. (24) provides
a structure for Vietnamese tones with the terms used here only partially defined (but see also Chapter Five where these terms
are further discussed and justified). Some terms in (24) are used only for descriptive and classificatory purposes, e.g., [non-
level] and [curve]. However, the formal representation of each tone follows in (28). The tonal root node in (23) is represented
by the tone’s name in (24); later, in (28), that name is used for referential convenience.
In (24), the two major components of tones are Contour (C) and Register (R), as in (23). The term [laryngeal] is used as a
marked feature for register and appears in huyen, nang1, and nga. The feature [laryngeal] has [spread] as its dependent in
huyen and [constricted] as its dependent in nang1 and nga. The evidence for the register features and their phonetic realization
is presented in Chapter Five. With respect to the contour feature, the tones ngang and huyen are essentially flat and are not
specified as [even]. The feature [non-even] (changing direction) appears for the rising and falling tones sac1 and nang1. The
feature [curve] appears for the two curved tones (down and then up) hoi and nga.
(24)
(c)
(25)
Tones can be captured through the use of points, notated by •. These points indicate whether there is movement during the
tone. A single point indicates a level tone. Because contour shows the F0 value of a tone during the time of production, at least
one point needs to be specified for each tone in order to generate the tone contour. If the tone is level, i.e., there is no
movement during its production, one point is the beginning point (onset), marked with •, and it generates the end point
(offset), as in (25). (The register feature is omitted for convenience.) The underlying contour feature is specified for one point
in (a). While a level tone has only a single point phonologically, it nevertheless extends phonetically over a tone period. On
the surface in (b), this point generates the second point to end the tone.
If there is movement during the tone, two points are required at the phonological level to indicate the contour, i.e.,
movement, of the tone, e.g., whether it is rising or falling. These two points at the phonological level must be interpreted as
having different values. The movement from the onset to the offset of a rising or falling tone is illustrated in (26). (Note that
the height of the points makes no reference to anything that occurs in the surface forms; it is simply an illustrative device.)
In (a), a contour tone (a tone with movement) has two points phonologically. If it is a rising tone, the second point is higher
phonetically than the first point to indicate the rise, as in the first example in (b). If it is a falling tone, the second point is
lower phonetically than the first point on the surface to indicate the fall, as in the second example in (b).
If the tone is a curved tone, e.g., the tone goes down and then rises, three points are needed to indicate the complex
movement phonologically, as in (27).
A concave tone is phonetically indicated with the mid point lower than the first and last points to show that the tone goes
down and then up, as in the first example in (b). A convex tone is indicated phonetically with the mid point higher than the
(26)
(27) Specification of the contour of a tone that changes direction more than once
(28)
first and last points to show that the tone goes up then down, as in the second example in (b). The phonetic interpretation of
contour and register features is further discussed in Chapter Five, where pitch will be shown to be derived from the register
and contour features.
(28) provides a phonological representation for each tone.
(30)
The theory of Contrastive Underspecification, e.g., Avery and Rice 1989, Rice 1992, and Wu 1994, holds that an unmarked
feature is absent underlyingly unless there is a contrast which forces it to be present, and allows for the omission of unmarked
features in (28). The register feature [laryngeal] is marked; therefore, it is present underlyingly in huyen but absent in ngang in
(a) in (28).
The level tone ngang has no specified features. Its counterpart huyen has the register feature [laryngeal] with [spread]
(breathy, see Chapter Five) as its dependent. In each level tone, one point is specified for the contour feature, marked with •, as
shown in (27). This point does not need to be specified as ‘h’ or ‘I,’ because this value is predictable from the laryngeal
feature. (See the discussion of the phonetic realization of tone in Chapter Five.)
In (b) in (28), sac 1 does not have a register feature but does have a contour. As there is movement in this tone, two points
are required to represent the contour, marked with •. Sac1’s counterpart, the falling tone nang1, has the register feature
[laryngeal] with the feature [constricted] (creaky, see Chapter Five) as its dependent. On the contour side nang1 is specified
for two points to show the movement. (c) in (28) shows the representation of the curved tones hoi and nga. Hoi does not have
the register feature. It has a contour specified for three points to generate a curved tone. Its counterpart nga has features on
both sides. On the register side nga has a laryngeal feature with [constricted] as its dependent. On the contour side, as in hoi,
nga has three points specified to represent the curve.
The representations in (28) show that each pair of tones shares the same contour: ngang and huyen have only one point
specified phonologically; sac1 and nang1 have two points specified phonologically to show that these tones change direction;
and hoi and nga have three points specified phonologically to show that these tones change direction more than once, i.e.,
they go down and then rise (there are no rising-falling (lhl) contours in Vietnamese). On the register side the representation in
(28) shows that tones on the left (ngang, sac1, and hoi) do not have the register feature. The tones on the right share the same
register feature [laryngeal] with a dependent.
The markedness relations of tones are based on structural complexity. Four kinds of markedness apply to tones:
markedness within register; markedness within contour; markedness between pairs; and markedness within pairs. The
representations in the left column of (28) show that the unmarked register consists of tones that are unspecified for register,
i.e., ngang, sac1, and hoi. In the right column the marked register consists of tones that are specified for register with the
features [spread] or [constricted], i.e., huyen, nang1, and nga. Tones in the right column, therefore, are more complex than
those in the left column with respect to register, and thus are more marked (see (7) in Chapter One). For example, ngang and
huyen have an equal degree of complexity on the contour side, with only one specified point for each; however, on the
register side huyen has the feature [laryngeal] with [spread] as its dependent. In this case huyen is horizontally more complex
than ngang.
In terms of contour, ngang and huyen are simpler than sac1 and nang1, and these in turn are simpler than hoi and nga. A
comparison of ngang and sac1 shows that neither of these tones has features under the register node. However, on the contour
side sac1 has two points specified for the contour feature while ngang has only one. Therefore, sac1 is horizontally more
complex than ngang (with two points of contour). Likewise, a comparison of huyen and nang1 shows that nang1 is vertically
more complex than huyen (with two points specified for the contour). Although both huyen and nang1 have the [laryngeal]
feature on the register side, [constricted] is more marked than [spread]. A comparison of the pair sac1 and nang1 with the pair
hoi and nga shows that on the register side sac1 and hoi are equally complex in that they lack the register feature. Nang1 and
nga are equally complex: both have the feature [laryngeal] with [constricted] as its dependent. However, on the contour side
sac1 and nang1 are horizontally less complex than hoi and nga. Hoi and nga have three points specified for the contour
feature whereas sac1 and nang1 have two. Overall, the simplest structure is that of ngang with only one contour point
specified. The most complex tone is nga with the laryngeal feature [constricted] and three points specified for the contour.
(29) summarizes the markedness relationship of tones between registers.
(29)
Unmarked register ngang sac1 hoi
Marked register huyen nang1 nga
Within each pair in (29), the tone on the upper row is less complex than its lower counterpart according to the complexity
measure of (7). For example, in (a) in (28) ngang does not have the register feature while huyen has the feature [spread] under
Register. (30) summarizes the markedness relations of tones in opposite registers. Here ‘<’ indicates that the lefthand member
is less complex or less marked than the righthand member.
(32)
In terms of contour, the markedness of tones is also evaluated among tonal pairs across registers. Ngang-huyen is the least
marked of the three pairs. These tones have only one point specified for the Contour node. The second least complex pair is
sac1-nang1 Both tones have two points specified for the contour node and sac 1 is unspecified for register. This pair is also
horizontally more complex than the pair ngang-huyen according to (7). Finally, the most complex pair is hoi-nga: it is
horizontally more complex than sac1-nang1 with three points specified for the contour node. (31) summarizes the markedness
relations among tone pairs.
(31)
ngang-huyen<sac1-nang1<hoi-nga
Vietnamese tones can be grouped into two registers: an unmarked register consisting of ngang, sac 1, and hoi; and a
marked register consisting of huyen, nang1, and nga, Across registers tones are grouped in pairs according to their contour:
ngang-huyen, sac1-nang1, and hoi-nga. In terms of complexity tone is marked in different dimensions: within each pair one
tone is horizontally more complex than the other; across pairs one pair is horizontally more complex than the other. The pair
hoi-nga is the most marked and the pair ngang-huyen is the least marked.
Supporting Evidence
Diagnostics for markedness are often discussed in the phonological literature, particularly frequency and neutralization
targets. With frequency a less marked feature often has a wider distribution than a more marked one (Greenberg 1966,
Ferguson 1963, Maddieson 1984, Hockett 1955, Rice 1996, and Zipf 1949). With neutralization targets there is avoidance of
marked features: unmarked features are retained in neutralization environments and marked features are lost and merge with
unmarked features.
Evidence for the structure proposed in (28) and the markedness relations shown in (29) to (31) comes mainly from tone
frequency, neutralization in dialects, reduplication, and poetry. Further support comes from clitics and borrowings. The
markedness relationship within tonal pairs predicts that when neutralization occurs, it will neutralize the more marked tone to
the less marked tone. The markedness relationship also predicts that the less marked tones will occur more often than the
more marked tones.
In the structure in (23), Contour and Register have a sisterhood relation. This model predicts the existence of phonological
processes that affect only Contour and leave Register intact, and vice versa. Unlike many tone languages Vietnamese has no
tonal processes such as assimilation or tone sandhi. However, reduplication provides insights into the phonology of tones.
Vietnamese reduplication consists of several patterns including total and partial reduplication in both productive and
unproductive processes (for details see Burton 1992, Huu and Vuong 1980, Truong 1970, Ngo 1984, Thompson 1965, and
Vuong and Hoang 1994).
Tones pattern in reduplication in a predictable way that provides evidence for the two registers, namely unmarked
(traditional high) and marked (traditional low). The data in (32) show the pattern of unmarked register tones and those in (33)
show the pattern of marked register tones in a productive process of reduplication. The base tone is underlined. The tone of
the second syllable is not predictable but its register is. For example, in (a) in (32), the base tone is ngang, an unmarked tone,
and the reduplicant must be either sac1 or hoi. In this case it is sac1 In (32) the base tones are all unmarked register tones, i.e.,
ngang, sac1, and hoi; the reduplicant tones must also be from the unmarked register, i.e., sac1 in (a), hoi in (b), and ngang in
(c).
In this type of reduplication the contour of the reduplicant tone, i.e., the second syllable in (32), differs in an unpredictable
way from that of the base. However, the register of the base is always replicated in the reduplicant.
In (33), the base tones are marked register tones, i.e., huyen, nang1, and nga, and the reduplicant tone must be a marked register
tone, i.e., nang 1 in (a), nga in (b), and huyen in (c). Tone harmony is never violated.
(a) tan (huyen) ‘worn out’ > tan ta (huyen—nang1) ‘worn out’
(b) lanh (nang1) ‘cold’ > lanh leo (nang1—nga) ‘very cold’
(c) mo (nga) ‘grease’ > mo mang (nga—huyen) ‘very greasy’
Register preservation in tone harmony is strictly preserved even when there is no distinction between certain tones in some
dialects. For example, in Southern dialects nga is neutralized to hoi. Because the distinction between hoi and nga is still expressed
in the orthography and in productive reduplication, Southerners must memorize the rule of ‘ngang-sac-hoi’ and ‘huyen-nang-
nga’ in order to decide whether a morpheme has the tone hoi or nga (Hoang Thi Chau 1989: 201). For example, in ‘nong nay’
(temper), if ‘nong’ has sac1, ‘nay’ must be hoi, which is in the same register as sac1.
In reduplication register must be retained in tone harmony; however, contour can vary. Tones in the unmarked register
pattern together in one group (ngang, sac1, and hoi), and tones in the marked register comprise another group (huyen, nang1,
and nga). This patterning provides evidence for two registers in Vietnamese. These registers are independent of contour
features since tonal patterning in reduplication affects only Contour but not Register, e.g., an unmarked register tone can
pattern with another unmarked tone that has a different contour feature.
Researchers such as Bao 1999a, b, Duanmu 1990, and Snider 1999 also argue for Register and Contour being sisters. Yip
1989, 1995 proposes a model of tonal representation in which a register feature dominates a pitch feature and argues that
tones spread as a whole. (34) shows a high rising tone in Yip’s model with ‘H’ standing for register and ‘I, h’ standing for
pitch.
The fact that Register is preserved in Vietnamese reduplication is a challenge for such a system, regardless of the formal
details of how tones are determined in reduplication, by either spreading or copying of register. If Register dominates Pitch as
in (34), the reduplicant tone would have the same pitch feature, i.e.,‘Contour’ in this study, as its base, but such is not the case
in Vietnamese, where reduplicant tones do not share contour features with their base tones.
Yip 1995:487 also notes that spreading in African tone languages usually shows that voicing and Register do not interact: high
and low tones spread freely across syllables and across any kind of consonant, as Hyman et al, 1987 show for Luganda. This
type of spreading shows that only Pitch is involved not Register. Yip suggests that there are different types of dependency
relations between Pitch and Register in Chinese and African languages. The model in (23), in which Contour and Register are
independent, suggests a straightforward account for both types of spreading: in African languages only Contour spreads; in
Vietnamese reduplication only Register spreads. Reduplication, therefore, provides evidence for the independence of contour
and register features. In addition, it provides evidence that the tonal pair ngang-huyen is unmarked compared to the other
tones.
It is widely recognized that in certain positions only a limited number of segments or features is allowed, e.g., Rice 1996
and Paradis and Prunet 1989. For example, almost all segments in the inventory of a language are allowed in syllable-initial
position but fewer occur in syllable-final position. In Korean, regardless of their particular coronal place and manner features,
all coronal obstruents are neutralized to [t] in coda position (Cho 1991:171). In the Saigon dialect of Vietnamese, while all
consonants (except /p/ (Pham 1998)) occur initially only coronals or velars can surface syllable-finally. With respect to laryngeal
features, German allows only voiceless obstruents in final position and voiced obstruents must devoice in this position
(Brockhaus 1995 and Jessen 1998). Features that are required in certain environments are said to be unmarked. Therefore, in
the examples involving coronal consonants in which [coronal] is the only place of articulation allowed in the coda, [coronal]
is unmarked. (See Greenberg 1966 for a discussion of neutralization as a characteristic of lack of markedness.)
If unmarked features occur in neutralization environments, the structure in (28) predicts that if there are tones occurring in
such an environment, they should be ngang or huyen, the least marked ones. This is indeed the case: ngang and huyen are
found in neutralizing environments, as in productive reduplication. This process neutralizes a base tone to ngang or huyen. The
particular form depends on the register of the base tone. If the base tone is an unmarked register tone, either sac1 or hoi, the
reduplicant tone must be ngang, another unmarked register tone, as in (a) in (35). If the base tone is a marked register tone,
either nang1 or nga, the reduplicant tone must be huyen, another marked register tone, as in (b) in (35).
(36)
(38)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
E E N N E E
E E N N E E N E
The model used here accounts for this process, as shown in (36). The reduplicant tone is pre-specified as a level tone, i.e.,
its contour is specified. Its register is predictable, being the same as the register of the base. (Note that there is no register
feature in (a), but there is one in (b)).
Further details of this process are discussed in Chapter Five; the important issue here is that less complex contours occur in
neutralization environments. A level contour is a less complex contour than a rising and falling one. This process shows that
ngang and huyen are two unmarked tones, here occurring in a neutralizing environment.
Frequency of occurrence can be a further diagnostic for the markedness of tones. A less marked feature occurs more
frequently than a more marked one, e.g., Greenberg 1966, Maddieson 1984, and Hamilton 1996. The ranking of markedness
of tones in (29), (30), and (31) predicts that among tones the least marked tone ngang should have the highest frequency and
the most marked tone nga should have the lowest frequency. Among pairs the least marked pair ngang-huyen should occur
the most frequently and the most marked pair hoi-nga the least frequently.
Vo 1997:20 examined 4243 monosyllabic words in a Vietnamese dictionary. Omitting syllables ending in the stops p, t, and
k, he provides the raw numbers of occurrence for each tone in sonorant-final syllables, as in (37).
(37)
Total ngang huyen sac1 nang1 hoi nga
4243 1029 840 845 606 570 353
(37) shows a striking match between frequency and markedness. The unmarked tone ngang occurs more than its more
marked counterpart huyen (1029 and 840 instances respectively). Likewise, sac1 occurs more than its more marked
counterpart nang1 (845 and 606 instances respectively) and hoi occurs more than its more marked counterpart nga (570 and
353 instances respectively). Finally, among pairs, the least marked pair ngang-huyen occurs the most often and the most marked
pair hoi-nga occurs the least often.
Poetry provides additional evidence that is compatible with the claim that ngang and huyen form a tonal pair. In a
traditional verse called six-eight verse, there is a pattern of alternation between even tones, i.e., Vietnamese ‘bằ ng’ (ngang
and huyen) and Vietnamese ‘trằ c,’ the so-called sharp tones, (all the other tones). This verse has a six-syllable line followed
by an eight-syllable line. The two lines form a pair. A poem can have any number of pairs of lines. (38) shows the patterns of
tones in the six-eight verse. ‘E’ stands for even tones underlined. Tones in the first, third, and fifth positions are flexible with
respect to whether they are even or sharp tones. Tones in the second, fourth, sixth, and (ngang and huyen), and ‘N’ stands for
non-even tones. The rhymed position is eighth positions must strictly follow the pattern. For example, a tone in the first
position can be either E or N, but a tone in the second position must be E (ngang or huyen). Thus only even tones can occur in
the rhymed position, underlined in (38).
(39)
(40)
The fact that tones in six-eight verse pattern in two groups, one group consisting of ngang and huyen and the other group
consisting of the remaining tones, shows that ngang and huyen form a pair. This pair shares the same contour feature; both are
level tones.
Furthermore, in poetry, rhyme is found in positions in which only even tones can occur: the last syllable of the six-syllable
line rhymes with the sixth syllable of the eight-syllable line; the eighth syllable of this line then rhymes with the last syllable
of the next six-syllable line; and so on. With the dominant occurrence of even tones, which do not have complex contours, six-
eight verse is regarded as the smoothest verse in Vietnamese poetry in terms of sound harmony. Since only even tones can
occur in rhyme position, this position is heavy enough, i.e., it is sufficiently metrically prominent, that an unmarked tone is
the best candidate to maintain the general smoothness of the poem in order to compensate for the heavy position. This
neutralization is not active since it does not change a lexical tone (an active neutralization changes a lexical tone in some
processes of reduplication) but rather requires a choice of words with tones ngang and huyen. The fact that only ngang and
huyen can occur in such a pattern supports the claim that they are unmarked and form a contour pair.
The model in (28) also predicts that if neutralization takes place, the more marked member of a pair will be neutralized to
the less marked member. Moreover, because Contour and Register are separate from each other, the model also predicts the
specific types of neutralization: in one type Contour contrasts will be retained with Register neutralized; in the other type
Contour contrasts will be lost but Register distinctions will remain. Such patterns of neutralization are found in Southern and
many Central dialects of Vietnamese (see Doan 1977 and Ngo 1984). In terms of contour the markedness relation between the
pairs in (29) predicts that neutralization should occur with the most marked pair hoi and nga. In terms of register the
markedness relation between the tones of each pair in (30) predicts that, because hoi is less marked than nga, hoi should be
retained in neutralization and nga lost, and merge with the unmarked hoi. In these dialects hoi and nga neutralize and the
result is hoi (Doan 1977, and Ngo 1984).
The hierarchical analysis of tones previously proposed offers a straightforward and simple account of such a neutralization
of hoi and nga to hoi: the contour contrast remains but the register contrast is lost (delinking of the register feature
[laryngeal]). (39) shows the process.
There are also markedness relations between tones in the same register. As (29) showed, the markedness between the pairs
of tones increases from left to right. In the unmarked register ngang is the least marked tone and hoi the most marked. In the
marked register huyen is the least marked tone and nga the most marked. (29) predicts that in neutralization within register the
lost tone in the unmarked register will be hoi and that in the marked register it will be nga. These are the two most marked
tones in their registers. These predictions prove to be correct, although here the evidence is mainly diachronic. In all Nghe
Tinh dialects spoken in North Central Vietnam, neutralization occurred in the marked register: nga neutralized to nang1
(Hoang Thi Chau 1989 and Vuong and Hoang 1994). The model offers a simple account of this fact. In this process Register
remained intact. Nang1 resulted from delinking of one point of the contour feature in nga. A complex contour (curve in nga)
was neutralized to a less complex one (nang1). Athough (40) shows delinking of the last point, the deleted point could be any
of the points because the result would be the same since, according to (28), a tone with two points specified and a register
feature is nang1. The register feature was preserved in this process.
The fact that neutralization results in nang1 shows that nga is more marked than nang1.
There is also a neutralization process in the unmarked register. In Mai Ban, another dialect of Nghe Tinh, nga merged with
nang1 in the marked register. Moreover, in the unmarked register hoi and sac1 also neutralized, resulting in sac1 (Hoang Thi
Chau 1989 and Vuong and Hoang 1994), as shown in (41).
(42)
(43)
(41)
ngang sac1 <---hoi
huyen nang1 <---nga
This evidence supports the claim that hoi is more marked than sac1 and that nga is more marked than nang1. Register remained
intact (no register) and the contour contrast was lost by the delinking of one point of the contour feature in hoi. (42) shows
this neutralization of a tone from a more complex contour feature (curve) to a less complex one (non-curve).
Once again, it is not necessary that it must be the beginning point in the contour feature of hoi that is delinked because the
result would be the same no matter which point is lost: according to (28) a tone without the register feature and with two
specified points for the contour is sac 1.
The fact that within Register neutralization occurs with the two tones hoi and nga provides further evidence for hoi and nga
being the most marked pair. Moreover, in all dialects, the two tones ngang and huyen always remain regardless of different
patterns of neutralization. This evidence strongly suggests that ngang and huyen are the least marked tones.
Neutralization of tones in dialects occurs in two dimensions: across registers and within register. In all cases the surface
tone in neutralization is the less marked member of a pair. Across registers the unmarked register tone remains, e.g., hoi in
Southern dialects. Within register the less marked tone remains, e.g., sac1 or nang1 in Nghe Tinh dialects. All patterns of
neutralization in both reduplication and poetry are alike in this regard. These patterns strongly support the claim that
markedness relations between tones do exist and that the features that make up tones are structurally organized.
Vietnamese clitics provide still other evidence for the markedness of tones. In the construction of phrases with clitics a
word is cliticized onto an adjacent word either to the left or to the right. After attaching to the adjacent word, all segments of
the clitic are deleted but its tone remains. If the clitic associates with an obstruent the clitic tone is realized on a homorganic
nasal. If it associates with a vowel or glide the clitic tone is realized on a geminated vowel or glide (Pham 1997). (43)
provides data from Pham 1997 transcribed here phonetically but with only the tones of the relevant syllables indicated.
Clitics and their tones are underlined. For example, in (a) the clitic tone is huyen. The word [la:m] ‘how’ with tone huyen
cliticizes onto the host [x′ n] ‘to pray’ (sac1), which ends in a coronal nasal. The clitic also surfaces as a coronal nasal bearing
its original tone huyen. In (b) the clitic [n ] ‘he’ with tone sac1 cliticizes onto the preceding host [c ] ‘to let’ (ngang), which
ends in a vowel. The vowel is lengthened and the tone of the clitic is realized on the lengthened part of the vowel / / In
Vietnamese, the underlying velar final consonant is phonetically doubly-articulated as a labio-velar, i.e., /k/ is [kp] and /′ / is
[′ m] after the back round vowels /u, o, / a process shown in (c). In (c) the host [x kp] ‘to cry’ bearing tone sac2 ends with a
labio-velar obstruent [kp]. The clitic [t ′ (ngang) ‘inside’ cliticizes onto the final consonant [kp] of the host and assimilates to
the place of the segment [p] of the labial consonant. The clitic surfaces as a labial nasal that bears tone ngang. In (d) the clitic
[ku′ m] ‘also’ with tone nga cliticizes onto the host [an] ‘eat’ with tone ngang. The clitic surfaces as a coronal nasal bearing
its original tone nga. (Although sac2 and nang2 are not discussed until Chapter Three, these tones are included here in (e).
There is a single clitic bearing tone nang2, the determiner [mot] ‘a.’ In (e) it cliticizes onto the host [k ] ‘have’ bearing sac1,
which ends in a vowel. The vowel in [k ] is lengthened and the tone nang2 of the clitic is realized on the lengthened part of
that vowel. Because sac2 and nang2 occur only in stop-final syllables, the nang2 of the clitic [mot] realized on a vowel must
surface as huyen.)
Since cliticization restricts the range of tones, the most frequent tones in clitics should be the less marked tones. This is
indeed the case because in terms of frequency of occurrence, ngang, huyen, and sac1 occur most frequently in clitics. Of the
24 clitics found in the recorded conversations and interviews in Pham 1997, there was only one clitic with the tone nga, (d)
above, and only one clitic, [mot] ‘determiner,’ with the tone nang2, which surfaced as huyen in (e). The rest were ngang,
huyen, and sac1 Of the 22 clitics, seven had ngang, six had huyen, and nine had sac1
Clitics do not provide a large quantity of data because only function (grammatical) words can be clitics. Nonetheless, the
similar distribution of ngang, huyen, and sac1 in clitics can be explained if we assume the structure of tones in (28), i.e., that
ngang, huyen, and sac1 are the least marked tones. This finding is consistent with the claim that the smaller the inventory, the
simpler the segments it has, e.g., Maddieson 1984 and Rice and Avery 1993.
Borrowings from non-tonal languages such as French or English also produce evidence compatible with the claim about the
markedness of tones. The proposed feature structure predicts that the tones in borrowed words should be ngang or huyen, the
least marked pair. This prediction is borne out. Furthermore, most borrowings bear the tone ngang, the least marked tone. For
example, among the examples given in (44), taken from dictionaries (Nguyen 1998 and Le 1988), very few forms occur with
huyen, e.g., ‘cà’ in cà phê ‘coffee,’ ‘mùi’ in mùi-xoa ‘handkerchief,’ ‘xì’ in xì-nách-ba ‘snack-bar’, and xì-c′ ng-′an ‘scandal.’
The majority of examples have ngang. Every syllable in Vietnamese must have a tone and in (44) these tones are given beside
the orthography. Sac2, the less complex tone of the pair, occurs in stop-final syllables.
Ngang also predominates in borrowings, e.g., hai-phai from English ‘hi-fi,’ (with the meaning ‘gay’) instead of ái nam ái
nằ , and em-xi from English ‘emcee,’ and in some abbreviations, e.g., xi-′i from English ‘CD,’ and ti-vi from English ‘TV.’
Because of the dominance of ngang in borrowed forms in sonorant-final syllables, Avery 1983 states that ngang is the only
tone found in borrowings. However, huyen also occurs. Moreover, (44) shows that borrowings that are monosyllabic words
occur only with ngang. The fact that only ngang and huyen occur in borrowed forms is used in many studies as evidence that
these tones are unmarked. For example, Avery 1983 argues that ngang and huyen have no tonal tier and Burton 1992 argues
that ngang and huyen are unmarked contour tones.
(Hoi does occurs in a very few items, e.g., o′ n (hoi) tù (huyen) tì (huyen) from English ‘one two three,’ and m′ (hoi) lét
(sac2) from French ‘molette.’ However, there seems to be no evidence for the use of nga. Such a distribution of hoi and nga
is not surprising: they are the most marked tones in the group that does not end with a stop consonant.)
The foregoing provides strong evidence for a structural representation of tones that incorporates markedness relations. The
model predicts the various types of neutralization that occur in reduplication, dialects, and poetry. Tones can be neutralized in
the same register, e.g., nga to nang1 in Nghe Tinh dialects, or across register, e.g., nga to hoi in Southern dialects. The
frequency of occurrence of tones in clitics provides evidence for markedness and the treatment of borrowings is compatible
with the claim that ngang and huyen are the least marked tones.
(44)
CHAPTER 3
The Tonal Inventory
The size of the tonal inventory is much debated in the literature on Vietnamese: the number of tones and the number of
features required to classify them. The discussion so far has focused mainly on the tones that occur in open and sonorant-final
syllables and ignored the two tones that occur in stop-final syllables. Two different positions may be taken with respect to
these latter tones. The six-tone hypothesis holds that these tones belong with sac and nang; the eight-tone hypothesis treats
them as independent tones. It is necessary to resolve this issue before proceeding further.
Six Tones or Eight?

In the six-tone system both nasals and stops are phonemic in final position, e.g., Doan 1977 and Vuong and Hoang 1994. In
the eight-tone system there is no manner distinction in final consonants, e.g., Cao 1998 and Hoang Thi Chau 1989. It should
also be noted that smaller inventories have also been proposed (see Doan 1977 and Vu 1988).
Only a limited number of segments can occur in final position in Vietnamese: glides, nasals, and voiceless stops. In non-
stop-final syllables six tones are found, but in stop-final syllables only sac2 and nang2 occur. The tonal distribution was given
in (8) above. Vietnamese orthography distinguishes only six tones: ngang, huyen, hoi, nga, sac, and nang. Therefore, the
orthography assumes that sac and nang occur in both syllable types whereas other tones occur only in open or sonorant-final
syllables. The discrepancy in distribution between sac and nang and the other tones has the consequence that only sac and
nang appear in all syllable types, whereas the other tones are restricted to syllable types that are not closed by obstruents.
The standard position in the literature, reflected in the orthography, is that there are six tones in the inventory with final
consonants distinctive in manner, e.g., Doan 1977 and Vuong and Hoang 1994. In this view sac1 and sac2 and nang1 and
nang2 are allophones in complementary distribution, i.e., sac1 and nang1 occur in non-stop-final syllables and sac2 and
nang2 occur in stop-final syllables, and there is no phonological tonal distinction between sac1 and sac2 or between nang1
and nang2. The distinction lies rather with the final stop or sonorant, because tone is predicted from the manner of that
consonant. For example, sac is realized as sac1 in an open syllable or before a sonorant but as sac2 before an obstruent. The other
tones have only a single form because no manner contrast is present in a following consonant. Thus, consonantal manner is
basic to predicting tonal shape. (45) shows the phonological tonal inventory of the six-tone system. The sacs and nangs are
categorized together, i.e., as noneven, non-broken. The two registers are unmarked and marked.
(45)
even non-even
non-broken broken
Unmarked ngang sac hoi
Marked huyen nang nga
Only sonorants follow ngang, huyen, hoi, and nga. However, this predictability of manner disappears when sac and nang
are added since both sonorants and obstruents follow sac and nang. Therefore, manner of articulation must be distinctive with
these tones and listed as part of the lexical entry. Why are final stops so restricted in their distribution? This question has been
of considerable concern in the traditional literature on Vietnamese tone. For example, Doan 1977 and Hoang 1986 offer an
explanation based on phonetics: a rhyme with a final voiceless stop is too short for other tones to be realized, i.e., ngang and
huyen must occur on a long enough span to show their level contour and hoi and nga require a certain length to show their
complex contour. Sac and nang are simply rising and falling, their contour is neutralized, and they need only be distinguished
by their registers (Hoang Cao Cuong 1989). However, such an explanation based on timing is not satisfactory. For example,
in the Hue and Saigon dialects a phonetically complex contour tone can occur with the final stop (Hoang Thi Chau 1989, Vu
1982, and Hoang Cao Cuong 1989). Figure 2 from Hoang Cao Cuong 1989 shows the tonal system in the Hue dialect. This
figure shows the tonal contours of only seven tones because in the Hue dialect nga is neutralized with hoi. Only sac1 and
Figure 2. The phonetic contours of sac1 and sac2 in the Hue dialect (from Hoang Cao Cuong 1989)
sac2, the two tones under consideration here, are labeled. Speaker 1 is male and speakers 2 and 3 are female. Hoang does not
label the duration of tones. The clearest pitch graph, that of speaker 2, shows that the two sacs, which are rising tones in the Hanoi
dialect, are falling-rising tones in Hue. They are in fact the only curved tones in Hue. Therefore, in the Hue dialect the rising
tones sac1 and sac2 of the Hanoi dialect surface as the curved tone hoi, i.e., a falling-rising tone, in the Hanoi dialect.
Figure 3 is also from Hoang Cao Cuong 1989. This figure shows the pitch graphs of four informants from the Saigon
dialect. Speakers 1 and 2 are male and speakers 3 and 4 are female. This figure labels only nang1 and nang2, the tones under
consideration here. These tones, which are falling tones in the Hanoi dialect, are falling-rising tones in the Saigon dialect.
The third curved tone in this dialect is hoi. The absence of hoi and nga in stop-final syllables in the Hanoi dialect has been
attributed to phonetics, the rhyme being too short to carry the complex contour tones. Figures 2 and 3 demonstrate that this
proposal does not explain why a tone with a phonetically complex contour can surface in a stop-final syllable in the Hue and
Saigon dialects.
In other tone languages the presence of a rising or a falling tone in the system implies the existence of a level tone in that
system (see Anderson 1978: 151). Because of this implication researchers have wondered whether contour tones should be
treated as single units or as sequences of two level tones (Anderson 1978 and Yip 1995). According to Anderson, Woo 1969
claims that the universal system of tonal features includes only a level-tone element. If stopfinal syllables provide an
environment that neutralizes tonal contours, the two simplest tones ngang and huyen should occur in that environment. There
Figure 3. The phonetic contours of nang1 and nang2 in the Saigon dialect (from Hoang Cao Cuong 1989)
are indeed languages in which stop-final syllables allow only level tones, e.g., Be (Hashimoto 1985), a Be-Tai language in the
Tai-Kadai family, and Sgaw and Pwo (Benedict 1972), two Karen languages in the Sino-Tibetan family. These languages
have both level and contour tones in non-stop-final syllables. Yip 1995:487 reports that Cantonese, a Chinese language, has
seven distinctive tones in non-stop-final syllables but only three level tones in stop-final syllables.
Burton 1992 addresses the issue of why only sac2 and nang2 occur in stopfinal syllables. (19) showed this classification.
Burton argues that only sac and nang can occur in stop-final syllables because they have simple contours, represented as ‘h’
in (19). Hoi and nga cannot occur in stop-final syllables because they have complex contours, represented as ‘lh’ in (19).
However, why is it that ngang and huyen, which also have simple contours, represented as ‘l’ in (19), do not occur in stop-
final syllables? Burton answers by proposing a constraint that ‘l-pitch tones cannot occur before a voiceless consonant.’ He
claims phonetic motivation: there is a relationship between voicelessness and high pitch, i.e., initial voiced consonants raise
the pitch of the vowel and voiceless consonants lower the pitch (Ohala 1973). All final stops in Vietnamese are voiceless.
Ngang and huyen are ‘l’ therefore, they cannot occur with final stops, which are voiceless. Sac and nang are ‘h’ tones; it
follows that they can occur before voiceless consonants. However, Burton provides no further explanation for this
constraint.
Burton classifies tonal contours phonetically. Figure 4 shows a pitch graph of the Hanoi dialect from Vu 1982. Burton
argues that ngang and huyen are classified as ‘1’ because they are articulated in the lower part of their respective registers.
Burton perhaps bases his claims on Vu’s placement of the middle line in Figure 4, which divides the tones into two registers.
This line shows that ngang and huyen are articulated in the lower parts of their registers, ngang in the upper register and
huyen in the lower register; therefore, they are both ‘l.’ However, this claim fails with nang, which is classified as ‘h’
although it is in the lower part of its register. Figure 4 shows that the sacs (sac1 and sac2) occur in the higher part of their
registers and are therefore ‘h’ tones. However, a comparison of nang1 and nang2 shows that except for their beginnings, both
are low in their registers, even lower than huyen. Chapter Four will show that it is the end points not the beginning points of
nang1 and nang2 that are distinctive. Consequently, phonetic evidence does not support the claim that the nangs are ‘h.’
Burton also says that sac and nang can occur with final stops because they are high in pitch. Since final stops are always
voiceless in Vietnamese, it is impossible to test such a claim.
Figure 4. Normalized mean F0 in the Hanoi dialect (from Vu 1982)
The alternate hypothesis is that there are eight tones in the phonological inventory. For example, traditional poetry
classifies tones according to their register and contour. There are two registers, ‘phu’ (high) and ‘tram’ (low). Contour tones
are divided into ‘binh’ (even) tones and ‘trac’ (non-even) tones. Among non-even tones there are ‘thuong’ (falling and rising)
tones, ‘khu’ (rise or fall) tones, and ‘nhap’ (checked) tones, i.e., the two tones that occur in stopfinal syllables. These terms
were used as the names of the tones in the literature before the current terms were introduced. However, in the system based
on tonal patterning in poetry that uses the traditional names, e.g., phu, tram, and so on, researchers show inconsistency
concerning the register of hoi and nga. Some, e.g., Hoang Thi Chau 1989:202 and Phan 1997:23, classify hoi as ‘phu’ (high)
and nga as ‘tram’ (low), but others, e.g., Doan 1977:120, place hoi in the ‘tram’ register and nga in the ‘phu’ register. The
classification in (46) shows the former view. The traditional eight-tone classification describes hoi as phonetically low and
nga as phonetically high. In this respect it resembles the six-tone classification.
(46)
binh (even) trac (non-even)
thuong (fall & rise) khu (rise/fall) nhap (checked)
PHU (high) ngang hoi sac1 sac2
TRAM (low) huyen nga nang1 nang2
(48)
However, rather than being predictable variants of sac and nang in non-stopfinal syllables, sac1 and nang1 are phonologically
distinct from the tones in stop-final syllables, i.e., sac2 and nang2. The eight-tone hypothesis claims that the contrast between
sac and nang in stop-final syllables and sac and nang in sonorant-final syllables lies with the tones and that the manner of the
final consonant is conditioned by tone. For example, [mat] with the tone sac2 and [man] with the tone sac1 contrast in the two
different sacs not in the two different final consonants. Thus, there is no underlying manner contrast in final consonants.
Because voiceless stops can occur only with sac2 and nang2, voiceless stops are conditioned by these tones: sac2 and nang2
predict voiceless stops. It is thus manner that is allophonic rather than realizations of sac and nang.
(47) shows an underlying eight-tone system, together with an example, based on Cao 1998. The example in (47), aC, shows
the Vietnamese orthography for tones in which the final consonant is unspecified for manner, here represented by ‘C’ (Cao
1998 uses only the coronal in the example.) In the surface forms ‘N’ represents a final sonorant and ‘T’ a final stop. Two
registers, ‘phu’ (high) and ‘tram’ (low), have four high tones (ngang, nga, sac1, and sac2) and four low tones (huyen, hoi,
nang1, and nang2). In terms of contour the even tones are ngang and huyen. The six non-even tones are divided into three
groups: curved tones (hoi and nga); rising/falling tones (sac1 and nang1); and two additional tones (sac2 and nang2), which
are non-curve. As in (45) and (46), hoi is placed in the high register and nga in the low register.
(47)
EVEN NON-EVEN
rising/falling curve non-curve
Phu aC (ngang) => [aN] aC (sac 1) => [áN] ′ C (h o i) =>[′ N] −aC (sac2) => [áT]
Tram àC(huyen) =>[àN] aC(nang1) =>[aN] ãC (nga) =>[ãN] −aC (nang2) => [′ T]
The eight-tone system allows the manner of the final coronal to be predicted from tone. The difference between [áN] (sac1)
and [áT] (sac2) lies with tones. Sac1 and nang1 predict a final sonorant. Sac2 and nang2 predict a final stop. The different
tones are thus represented as /aT, sac1/ and /aT, sac2/ rather than as /aT, sac1 and /aN, sac1, as in the six-tone view.
Cao 1998 captures this distribution by assuming that [±nasal] is a tonal feature that is realized on the final consonant. Sac2
and nang2, are [-nasal] so the final consonant surfaces as a stop. Sac1, nang1, and the other remaining tones are [+nasal] so
the final consonant surfaces as a sonorant. In (48), C is a consonant that has no manner specification.
Cao notes that because the writing system uses the same diacritics for these two tones in all syllable types, it misleads
phonologists to propose a six-tone inventory. If the founders of the current writing system had used distinct diacritics for sac
and nang in stop-final syllables, this confusion of tones would not be a problem. For example, in (47) all consonants would
share manner but use different diacritics for sac and nang in non-stop-final and stop-final syllables.
An Eight-Tone System
While the eight-tone analysis is little discussed in the current literature on Vietnamese, it was assumed in traditional poetry
before the current Vietnamese writing system was created (Cao 1998). Adding two tonemes also reduces the phonemic final
consonant inventory from six to three, i.e., from /p, t, k, m, n, ′/ to /M, N, ′/, where /M, N, ′/ represent places of articulation
without specification for manner. It also provides a simpler account of tone harmony in reduplication (Cao 1998). For
example, the reduplication process discussed in Chapter Two shows that the reduplicant tone must be either ngang or huyen
depending on the register of the base tone. It is ngang if the base tone is an unmarked register tone and huyen if the base tone
is a marked register tone. Since the reduplicant carries either ngang or huyen, it must therefore end in a sonorant consonant. If
the base tone is other than sac2 and nang2, as in (49), tone harmony is the same in both systems. (The base tone is once again
underlined.)
(49)
/toj/ (sac1) ‘dark’ > toj (ngang)+toj (sac1) ‘rather dark’

However, if the base ends in a stop, the reduplicant must still have either huyen or ngang as its tone. Since these tones are
incompatible with final stops, a final nasal surfaces instead. (50) shows this: the base tone sac2 in (a) has the reduplicant tone
ngang, which surfaces with a final velar nasal, and the base tone nang2 (b) has the reduplicant tone huyen, which surfaces
with a final labial nasal.
(50)
(a) sac (sac2) ‘sharp’ > sang sac (ngang—sac2) ‘rather sharp’
(b) dep (nang2) ‘beautiful’ > dem dep (huyen—nang2) ‘rather beautiful’
In this case tone harmony is represented differently in the two systems, as (50) shows. The six-tone analysis requires a rule to
change a stop to a homorganic nasal, i.e., a final stop consonant must change to a homorgarnic nasal if it occurs with tones
other than sac2 and nang2, as in (a). On the other hand, the eight-tone system in (b) does not need such a rule because the
manner of the consonant is predictable from the tone, i.e., ngang predicts a final sonorant. Here the final consonant in the eight-
tone system, unmarked for manner, is represented by a nasal.
(51)
The eight-tone system provides a more elegant account of reduplication in Vietnamese in that the manner becomes simply a
consequence of default.
Hoang Thi Chau 1989:202 supports the eight-tone system using not only arguments from traditional poetry, i.e., (46), but
also because it accords with the hypothesis that tones developed from segments. According to Haudricourt 1954, Vietnamese
tones developed from voicing of initial and final segments, as (52) shows. Haudricourt uses p and b to represent initials since
only the voicing is important here. s and x represent the voiceless fricatives, alveolar and velar, respectively. There are no final
stops in (52) except ?.
(52)
In this view early Vietnamese was non-tonal. By the 6th century three tones were established: ngang in open syllables; huyen
from the final fricatives [s] and [h]; and sac from the final [x] and glottal stop. By the 12th century the voicing contrast was lost
in the initial consonants and six tones resulted in two registers. The original voiced initial gave rise to low tones (huyen, nga,
and nang). However, it is not clear how hoi and nga developed from huyen. Finally, in modern Vietnamese, a voicing contrast
is reestablished to give six tones.
Hoang Thi Chau 1989 and Vu 1988 claim that when final consonants disappeared they created tones with their traces: the
final stops disappeared and left glottalization in sac and nang; and the final fricatives disappeared and left creakiness in hoi
and nga. Therefore, an understanding of how tones developed helps in understanding the origin of phonation types in the
current tonal system. However, what the final *-x from *pax and *bax actually leaves in a tone remains undisclosed. This
historical hypothesis is very influential in the literature on Vietnamese since it supports the eight-tone view and offers an
account of the intimate relationship that exists between the final stops and tones.
(53)
There are still further problems with Haudricourt’s hypothesis. For example, Chapter Four will show that it is reasonable to
claim that the historical final glottal stop left a trace in nang1 where the tone has either glottal stop or creakiness. However,
that claim cannot be made for sac1, where glottal stop is not found in the tone (see Alves 1997). Hoi and nga also developed
from final *-s and *-h and it is claimed that the breathy voice found in these tones has its origin in these fricatives. However,
Chapter Four will show that hoi has breathiness while nga is characterized by creakiness or glottal stop, a characteristic which
comes from the historical final glottal stop.
The eight-tone view gains support even from authors who use the six-tone one in their work. For example, in a standard
book on Vietnamese phonology, Doan 1977 presents the six-tone system as the formal, official one. However, in his
discussion he says that he makes this choice because it is very popular and familiar in the Vietnamese literature, and is
reflected in the orthography. After showing several different tonal inventories including the six-tone and eight-tone systems,
he comments that the eight-tone system is probably best, because it reflects the traditional classification in poetry before the
orthography was created.
The Additional Tones

Only the two tones sac2 and nang2 can occur in stop-final syllables. The manner of articulation of the final consonants is also
predictable from the tones. Ngang, huyen, hoi, nga, sac1, and nang1 predict that a final consonant will be a sonorant, and sac2
and nang2 predict that a final consonant will be an obstruent. The structures of sac2 and nang2 contain the feature [obstruent]
and tones with this feature are more marked than those without it. It is not unusual to find that obstruents are neutralized in the
coda position in various languages. For example, in Spanish and Italian, except for s, only sonorants can occur in final
position (Clements 1990a: 312). Such evidence supports the claim that obstruents are more marked than sonorants in this
position. Support for this claim is also found in the final inventory of Vietnamese and in clitics.
The phonetic final inventory was given in (2). Under the eight-tone hypothesis, final stops and nasals are in complementary
distribution and are thus allophones. According to the feature organization of segments, as developed in Clements 1990b and
Clements and Hume 1995, a consonant has a C-place node in (a) in (53) under the root node, and a vowel has a V-place node
and an aperture node as its sister in (b) in (53) under the vocalic node. An aperture node specifies vowel height. The
difference between a vowel and a glide is that the former has an aperture node, which the latter lacks, as in (c). X is a place
feature.
If nasal and stop in final position are allophones, there are two types of underlying segments in final position, one for
consonants and the other for glides. The representation of a final consonant is illustrated in (54) below with only relevant
features given.
In (a) the surface final voiceless stops and nasals share the same underlying representation, a Root node with C-place as a
dependent. On the surface there are two types of consonants: one with the [obstruent] feature and the other without. In the
type with the [obstruent] feature the consonant is realized as a voiceless stop. It acquires the feature [obstruent] from the tone.
The eight-tone hypothesis assumes that this feature is a tone feature so [obstruent] is shown in the representations of sac2 and
nang2 only. In the second type the feature [nasal] is inserted by a default rule (Rice 1993) and yields a surface nasal.
(54)
(b)
(56)
(b) assumes that the glides [w] and [j] have the underlying V-place node under the vocalic node. The Nasal Default rule
does not apply to glides and the result is a plain sonorant, the consequence of a constraint that prohibits a node from being
specified for nasal if the vocalic node is present in the segment (there are no nasalized vowels in Vietnamese).
The conclusion is that there is no underlying manner feature for syllablefinal obstruents or sonorants; the surface feature for
sonorants is a default feature inserted at the phonetics. Sac2 and nang2 force the insertion of obstruent.
Clitics provide further evidence that in Vietnamese sonorants are unmarked in the syllable-final environment. Clitics in the
coda position are unspecified for manner and [nasal] is a default feature. (55) gives examples of clitics and cliticization. Only
the forms involved in cliticization are shown, and the clitics are underlined.
(55)
As Chapter Two showed and from (55) it is apparent that after cliticizing onto the host all segments of the clitic disappear and
only the tone remains. In (a) the clitic surfaces as a nasal if the host ends in an obstruent. It so happens that this clitic [la:m]
ends in a nasal. In this case the nasal has the place of articulation of the final obstruent, i.e., it is [n] in (a) because [ha:t] ends
in [t]. The tone of the clitic is realized on the nasal. If the host ends in a vowel, as in (b), or a glide, as in (c), the vowel or
glide is lengthened and the tone is realized on the lengthened part. (The clitic [mot] in (b) occurs with huyen not the original
nang2 tone.) No matter what tone the base has the clitic must have an unmarked register tone that predicts a sonorant. The
fact that only sonorants (nasal, vowel, and glide) can surface in the clitics supports the claim that in that environment
sonorants are less marked than obstruents.
In order to represent sac2 and nang2 structurally it is necessary to assume that the feature [obstruent] is part of these tones
and that the predictability of a final stop with these tones follows from its presence. Since this feature is a marked feature in this
position, it must be present underlyingly in the representation of sac2 and nang2, as in (56).
Sac2 and nang2 have the feature [obstruent] under the contour node in (56) because these are the only tones that occur with
stop-final syllables. These structures can be compared with those of sac1 and nang1 in (57).
(57)
The only difference under the contour node is the presence of [obstruent] in sac2 and nang2. As with sac1 and nang1, sac2
and nang2 have two points specified under the feature [obstruent] to show the movement. Neither sac1 nor sac2 has a register
feature because it is unmarked for register. On the register side nang2 is marked with the register feature [laryngeal] just as is
nang1. However, unlike nang1, [laryngeal] in nang2 has [spread] as its dependent. Chapter Five provides justification for the
register feature. While sac2 and nang2 are equally complex in (57) on the contour side, sac2 is less complex than nang2 on
the register side with the feature [spread]. The restricted distribution of sac2 and nang2 is an indicator of the markedness of
these tones. A comparison of the structures of sac2 and nang2 in (57) with the structures of the other six tones in (28) from
Chapter Two shows that sac2 and nang2 are the most complex tones vertically with the feature [obstruent] under the contour
node.
In the process of reduplication discussed in Chapter Two tones in the unmarked register (ngang, sac1, and hoi) pattern
together in one group and tones in the marked register (huyen, nang1, nga) form a second group. The register of the base is
always replicated in the reduplicant. The data in (58) show this process with sac2 and nang2. (The base tone is underlined.)
(58)
(The fact that a final stop in the base changes to a homorganic nasal in the reduplicant was dealt with earlier and is not
relevant to the argument here.) In (a), when the base is sac2, the reduplicant is always ngang, an unmarked register tone. In
(b), when the base is nang2, the reduplicant is always huyen, a marked register tone. Sac2 patterns as if it were in the same
group as sac1 and hoi, i.e., all have ngang in the reduplicant. Nang2 patterns as if it were in the same group as nang1 and nga,
i.e., all have huyen in the reduplicant. This pattern shows that sac2 and nang2 share the same register feature with other
unmarked and marked register tones. Sac2 does not have the register feature and nang2 has the marked feature [laryngeal]
with [spread] as its dependent, e.g., in huyen. The use of the feature [spread] will be justified in Chapter Five. The behavior of
sac2 and nang2 in reduplication shows that sac2 is an unmarked register tone and nang2 is a marked register tone. (59)
summarizes the markedness of tonal registers in the eight-tone system.
(59)
Unmarked register ngang sac1 hoi sac2
Marked register huyen nang1 nga nang2
Borrowings provide evidence that sac2 is less complex and, therefore, less marked than nang2. Borrowed forms that end in
non-sonorant segments can occur only with final stops. Consequently, the two possible tones in this position are sac2 and
nang2. (60) gives some examples of borrowings (from Nguyen 1975 and Nguyen 1998). The tone sac2 is represented by the
diacritic ‘′’ above the vowel, and nang2 is represented by the diacritic ‘.’ underneath the vowel. Some of the borrowed forms
in (60) can occur with either sac2 or nang2, e.g., (h), (i), and (j). The data in (60) show that sac2 is more common than nang2
in borrowings.
(60) Borrowings with sac2 or nang2

(a) x′ p (Fr. chef) (sac2) ‘chief’
(b) dip (Fr. jupe) (sac2) ‘short skirt’
(c) xà lách (Fr. salade) (huyen-sac2) ‘salad’
(d) cà r′ t (Fr. carotte) (h huyen-sac2) ‘carrot’
(e) gác (Fr. garde) (sac2) ‘guard’
(f) séc (Fr. cheque) (sac2) ‘cheque’
(g) mù t′ c (Fr. moutarde) (huyen-nang2) ‘mustard’
(h) gác do bu (Fr. garde-boue) (sac2-huyen-ngang) ‘mudguard’
or g′ c do bu (nang2-huyen-ngang)
(i) xi′ c (sac2) (Fr. cirque)or xi′ c (nang2) ‘circus’
(j) soó (sac2) (Eng.) or so′ c (nang2) ‘short’
(k) các vi dít (Fr. carte de visit) (sac2-ngang-sac2) ‘business card’
or các vi dít (nang2-ngang-sac2)
or các vi dít
(k) in the above does not have nang2 in both syllables of the word, i.e., *cac vi d′t (nang2-ngang-nang2) is impossible.
Moreover, (except for (g), which is rare), if only a single form is available, it occurs with sac2 not nang2. Examples are lúp/*
l′ p (Fr. loupe), típ/*t′p (Fr. type), xúp/*x′ p (Fr. soupe), ráp/*r′ p (Eng. rap music), x′ p/*x′p (Fr. chef), r′ c/*r′c (Eng. rock
music), a-xít/ *a-xit (Fr. acid), tu′ c-no-vít / *tu′ c-n′-v′t (Fr. tournevis), xà lách/*xà l′ ch (Fr. salade), and phát phút/ *phat
ph′ t (Eng. fast food).
The dominance of sac2 over nang2 in this type of borrowing has led researchers, e.g., Burton 1992, to claim that only sac2
occurs in this syllable type. However, nang2 also occurs. The more frequent distribution of sac2 over nang2 in this type is
explained if sac2 is less marked than nang2.
Frequency effects also lend some support to the claim that sac2 is less marked than nang2 and to the eight-tone hypothesis.
(37) in Chapter Two showed that the pair ngang and huyen occur more frequently than the pair sac1 and nang1. However, if
sac and nang in both syllable types are regarded as the same, within a six-tone system the frequencies are quite different. (61)
from Vo 1997 shows the actual numbers of tones when sac and nang include both types of syllables: stop and non-stop final.
(61)
Total sac nang ngang huyen hoi nga
4243 1426 1045 1029 840 570 353
In (61), ngang and huyen, the two unmarked tones, have a lower frequency than sac and nang. If the less marked the tone
the more frequently it occurs, the markedness relationship between the pairs is strange. If ngang and huyen are unmarked
because of their patterns in reduplication and in borrowings, they should occur more frequently than sac and nang. However,
they occur less frequently. The six-tone hypothesis is unable to explain this fact.
(37) and (61) provide the information needed to calculate the frequency of sac2 and nang2 in stop-final syllables. (62)
shows that frequency.
(62)
sac2: 581 nang2: 439
Nang2 occurs less frequently than sac2, a confirmation of the claim that nang2 is more complex than sac2. Moreover, sac2
and nang2 occur less frequently than ngang and huyen, the two unmarked tones in all analyses. (63) summarizes the
frequency of occurrence of the eight tones. The bold border separates the two tones in stop-final syllables from the rest.
(63)
huyen sac 1 nang 1 ngang hoi nga sac2 nang2
840 845 606 1029 570 353 581 439
(63) shows that among tones in sonorant-final syllables the unmarked tones ngang and huyen occur most frequently (1029
and 840 times respectively) with the ranking of markedness among tones shown in (64). The ranking in (64) summarizes the
ranking of six tones in sonorant-final syllables in (30) and (31) in Chapter Two with the addition of the two tones in stop-final
syllables. ‘<’ means ‘less marked than.’
(64)
If frequency of occurrence can be used as a diagnostic for the markedness of tones, the ranking of the markedness of tones in
(64) predicts that among tones in sonorant-final syllables, the least marked tone ngang has the highest frequency and the most
marked tone nga has the lowest frequency. Among pairs, the least marked pair ngang-huyen occurs most frequently and the most
marked pair hoi-nga occurs least frequently. In the two tones in stop-final syllables, nang2 occurs less frequently than sac2.
These predictions about frequency in Vietnamese are borne out; consequently, there is good evidence forthe markedness
relations proposed here.
CHAPTER 4
The Acoustics of Tone
This chapter is devoted to a review of previous experimental studies of Vietnamese tones and the presentation of the findings
of an acoustic study of Northern dialects. The particular concerns addressed are the fundamental frequency (F0), phonation
types, length, and linear portion of tones.
Previous Studies
There have been a number of acoustic studies of Vietnamese tones, e.g., Han 1969, Vu 1982, Hoang 1986, Nguyen and
Edmondson 1997, and Vu 1999. However, those of Nguyen and Edmondson, Vu, and Hoang merit special consideration.
Nguyen and Edmondson 1997 is the only study using modern instrumental techniques that focuses on phonation types in
Northern Vietnamese tones. They argue that in addition to fundamental frequency, voice qualities are used distinctively in
Northern dialects. They examined [ta] with 6 tones in an open syllable; they did not investigate tones in stop-final syllables.
They recorded six speakers three times each and analyzed the responses using CECIL 2.1. They calculated the F0 value of
each syllable. Figure 1 in Chapter Two shows the normalized F0 values of the three pairs of tones. (It is not clear whether the
values given in Figure 1 are averaged across speakers or are from one speaker.)
Nguyen and Edmondson provide the following description of the tones and assigned each tone a relative pitch value in
numbers using the system in Chao 1930 (cited in Bao 1999b), with 1 representing the lowest point and 5 the highest point in
the pitch range. The first pair, in Figure 1(a), is ngang and huyen. Ngang (high level) is a high tone with a flat contour
gradually going down just a little; it is a 33 tone. Huyen (low level) is a low tone with a flat contour and starts lower than
ngang and then goes down slightly at the end; it is a 21 tone. The second pair, in Figure 1(b), is sac1 and nang1. Sac1 (rising)
starts from a lower point than ngang and rises to the highest point in the pitch range; it is a 35 tone. Nang1 (falling) is shorter
than the other tones; it is a 32 tone. The third pair, in Figure 1(c), is nga and hoi. Nga starts as high as ngang and then rises to
the highest point in the pitch range. It is interrupted by a glottal stop at approximately 225 ms (milliseconds). Hoi starts
between the beginning points of ngang and huyen, goes down, and then rises to a point that is close to the onset. They do not
assign tonal numbers to hoi and nga.
Nguyen and Edmondson observe that there is variation in tones from speaker to speaker in terms of length, contour, and F0
level. Figure 5 displays the six tones using the syllable [ta] from two speakers. In 5(a) the sac tone for speaker 6 starts higher
than ngang, huyen, and hoi, at approximately 44 semitones. However, for speaker 2 in 5(b) sac has the lowest starting point.
The nang1 tone is very short for speaker 6. It is also higher than the same speaker’s ngang. Figure 5 shows that for both
speakers nga is broken in the middle by a glottal stop. Speaker 6 in 5(a) starts nga at 46 semitones and breaks it with a glottal
stop from 100 ms to approximately 320 ms. After the glottal stop the rising portion emerges at between 48 and 50 semitones.
For speaker 2 in 5(b), the broken portion in the nga tone is shorter than that of speaker 6, from approximately 90 to 180 ms. After
the glottal stop the rising portion in 5(b) emerges at between 50 and 54 semitones, a point higher than that for speaker 6. The
hoi tone does not show any rise in either speaker. Nguyen and Edmondson also investigated the phonation types and their
results are discussed in Chapter Five.
Vu was concerned with the general F0 of tones. He recorded eleven speakers from Northern dialects reading word lists.
One speaker was from Thanh Hoa province and one was from between Nam Dinh and Thanh Hoa. He also included the two
tones that occur in stop-final syllables, sac2 and nang2. The diagrams in Figure 6, from Vu, show the mean F0 of eight tones
plotted against mean duration (in centiseconds) from eleven speakers. Two tones appear in Figure 6 that do not appear in
Nguyen and Edmondson: sac2 and nang2. Sac2 is the highest tone, short and rising steadily to the highest point; nang2 is the
second lowest tone, short and falling steadily. The six remaining tones in Vu are similar to those in Nguyen and Edmondson.
For example, sac1 and nga have the highest end points and nga is broken by a glottal stop, represented by a dotted portion.
However, Vu shows nga as going down steadily and then rising very quickly to form a V shape. The difference in F0 between
tones is larger in Vu than in Nguyen and Edmondson because the scales differ. Vu’s nang1 is much lower than ngang. The
curved tone hoi, the lowest tone in Vu, clearly has a rising part which is not present in Nguyen and Edmondson. Therefore,
although the two studies agree on many points, they do show some variation, e.g., the lengths of the glottal stop and of nang1,
Figure 5. Six tones from speakers 6 and 2 (from Nguyen and Edmondson 1997:8)
and the shape of the curved tone hoi. Hoang 1986 shows tonal shapes in the Hanoi dialect that are similar to those in Vu. However,
there are differences in F0 between the two studies. Hoang recorded eleven speakers reading a word list of 150 syllables.
Figure 7 shows the pitch graphs of eight tones from four speakers. Speakers 1 and 2 are male and speakers 3 and 4 are
female. All the tones are labeled for speaker 4, but Hoang does not show duration.
Hoang like Vu shows that the three tones with the highest end points are sac 1, sac2, and nga. Nga also has the clear V
shape, but there is no break for the glottal. Hoi and nga show variation between speakers. Hoi is represented by a line broken
by dots. It is the lowest tone for speaker 1; it has a rising part for speaker 2; and it falls and levels off for speakers 3 and 4.
Nga is represented by a broken line with small circles. It also falls and rises. The most noticeable difference between the two
curved tones hoi and nga in this study and in the studies of Nguyen and Edmondson and Vu is that for the latter, the lowest point
of nga is higher than that of hoi. Hoang also shows that hoi bisects nga, as with speakers 3 and 4. This point will be discussed
further in Chapter Five.
These studies show variation in both the pitch height and contour of tones, especially in the non-level tones. However, it is
important to note that all these researchers describe nga as having a glottal stop in the middle and all share the view that tones
are classified according to their contours and registers. (65) shows the classification of tones that arises from these phonetic
studies. In these studies (and in almost all traditional studies of Vietnamese tones) ‘register’ must be interpreted as ‘tonal
height.’ High register tones include ngang, sac1, nga, and sac2. Low register tones include huyen, nang1, hoi, and nang2.
(65)
High ngang sac1 nga sac2
Low huyen nang1 hoi nang2
Once again there is a serious problem involving a mismatch between the phonetics and phonology of tones.
Figure 6. Mean F0 of eight tones in Northern Vietnamese (from Vu 1982)

A New Acoustic Study
This study investigated the fundamental frequency of all eight Vietnamese tones and the spectral characteristics of phonation
types such as creakiness and breathiness. Speakers of Vietnamese were asked to read controlled lists of words. Each word
consisted of a CV or CVC syllable. Only the vowel [a] was used. It was chosen because other vowels are very often
diphthongized. The initial consonants in open syllables include a nasal /m/, two stops /t, k/, and two fricatives /s, z/. The final
consonants include stops and velar nasals. The two final glides were tested only with hoi and nga. Some other forms were
mixed in with the tested forms. These included the long vowel /a:/ with the final nasal /m/, (t′ m tãm, t′ m t′ m), the short
vowel /a/ with the final nasal /n/ (t′ n tãn, t′n t′n), and closed syllables with the diphthong /i /. The set of tested syllables thus
included the segmental shapes [ma], [ta], [sa], [za], [ka], final consonant /′ /, and stops plus appropriate tones. There is no
tonal sandhi in Vietnamese and all tested forms were put in a fixed elicitation frame. The frame sentence was Ch′ …ph′i ngay
[c ……fa:j ′ aj] ‘The word…has to be straight.’ The fricative /f/ was chosen to follow the target form because there is always
a clear boundary between the target form and /f/ in the spectrogram, indicated by noise at higher frequencies.
The st′ dy involved nine speakers, three males and six females, of the Northern dialects. They were between 17 and 49
years of age and lived in Toronto. Six speakers were born and grew up in the North (Hung, Hoang, Phuong, An, Binh, and
Dung). The other speakers were born in the North and spent their childhood there. Later they left for the South but lived with
family of the same background and within Northern communities (VanKhanh, Son, and Van). These three also spoke
Northern dialects and regarded themselves as Northerners. The nine speakers had been in Toronto from one month to about
eighteen years. All were completely unaware of what being tested in their speech. 112 items were randomized 3 times and
presented to each speaker individually. Each speaker read all items. With nine speakers the total number of tokens was 3,024.
The spoken responses of the subjects were recorded in a quiet room. They were then digitized on an iMac computer. Each
data file contained the target form with its surrounding environment, i.e., after an open syllable [c ] and before [f], the onset
of the following syllable [fa:j]. SignalyzeTM3.12, created by Eric Keller 1994, was used for the analysis. Fundamental
Figure 7. Eight tones from four speakers (from Hoang 1986:24 and 1989:2)
frequency was not measured by pitch extraction from the program but was measured manually by determining the length of
the cycle at 30 ms intervals. The signal was digitized. The raw signal was then enlarged in order to measure individual cycles.
Signalyze was also used to produce spectrograms and Excel was used to graph pitch. In addition to F0, both creakiness and
breathiness were clearly present in the waveforms and they were also examined.
F0 was measured every 30 ms, starting immediately after the burst of an initial stop or after an initial nasal segment.
Measurements were taken at 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, 180, 210, 240, and 270 ms. For the tones with creakiness or glottal stop,
i.e., nang1 and nga, F0 was measurable only when there was a periodic glottal pulse evident in the spectrogram. With breathy
tones, F0 was measured when individual cycles could be clearly identified. When the tone was heavily breathy, i.e., it
contained glottal pulses with reduced amplitude making it difficult to identify individual cycles, the recorded signal was
filtered using a low pass (0–500Hz) Butterworth filter to suppress the high frequency components. After filtering, individual
cycles were more easily determined when only low frequency components were preserved. If there was no voicing in the
breathy portion, F0 was unmeasurable, a rare occurrence.
With a nasal-final syllable, the second part of the tone was realized during the nasal. Although voicing was not strong in the
nasal portion of the spectrogram, F0 was still measurable. If this part was ignored, the tone lost its second part and became
unusually short. In such cases there was not enough information about the contour of the tone and the tone became
unrecognizable. Usually the first two tokens of a form were measured. The third token was examined only as required, e.g.,
when the speaker made an unusual pronunciation of a form due to a slip of the tongue or had an unusually long pause before
or after the form. A spectrogram of the signal was produced using Signalyze’s extra-wide (300Hz) setting for a female voice
and the very wide (200Hz) setting for a male voice.
Fundamental frequency was the first concern, particularly the F0 contours of six tones with the same syllable [ta] and of
sac2 and nang2 with [ta:k] from eight of the speakers. Figure 8 is a set of graphs that show the F0 contours of all eight tones
from three males and five females. The values of tokens of the same form from each speaker as well as across speakers are
not averaged. The legend of tones in the graph is as follows: the speaker’s name, followed by the repetition of the token, then
the tone: ‘ng’ is ngang (high-level); ‘hu’ is huyen (low-level); ‘sac’ is sac1 (high-rising); ‘na’ is ‘nang1’ (low-falling); ‘sac-
cac’ is sac2 (high-rising in stop-final syllables [ka:k]); ‘na-cac’ is nang2 (low-falling in stop-final syllables); ‘hoi’ is hoi
(falling-rising); and ‘nga’ is nga (falling-rising with a glottal stop). For example, in (a) VKhI.ng-ta means speaker VanKhanh,
first token, tone ngang, syllable [ta]. The form in the legend box represents the writing system, e.g., ta is the written form of
[ta] and da is the written form of [za], The phonetic form is used in the title of the graph, e.g., 8 speakers.ngang-ta means the
pitch graphs (F0 graphs) of eight speakers using tone ngang in [ta].
In Figure 8, the three males Hung, Hoang, and Son always have the lowest frequencies. Hung has the widest frequency
range and Hoang is in the middle of the range except in sac1 (c) and sac2 (g). Ngang in 8(a) is level and usually falls slightly,
during the last 30 ms. Ngang starts at between 210 to 270Hz for females and 120 to 175Hz for males. Huyen in 8(b) is also
level and falls slightly. Huyen starts at between 150 to 250Hz for females and 110 to 160Hz for males.
Sac1 in 8(c) starts slightly lower than huyen, at between 180 to 230Hz for females and 100 to 150Hz for males. It is mainly
level and rises during the last 60 ms. The length of the level part varies from speaker to speaker. In An and Hoang the level
part is quite long until approximately 150ms. However, generally after about 120ms this tone rises and ends between 220 to
320Hz for females and 120 to 190Hz for males. Depending on the speaker, the F0 difference between the beginning and end
points of this tone is between 40 to 90Hz for females and 20 to 40Hz for males. The height of the ending of sac1 varies from
speaker to speaker, e.g., around 250Hz for VanKhanh, but up to 320Hz for Binh. It also varies from form to form for the same
speaker.
Nang1 in 8(d) starts between about 180 to 280Hz for females and between 100 to 155Hz in males. It falls steadily after
approximately 90 ms for most speakers. It has either a glottal stop (a blank in the line showing pitch) or a very creaky portion
from between 150 ms to 180 ms, where it looks very chaotic in the pitch graph. Then the tone remains level or rises slightly
before the end. Whether the tone ends with a glottal stop or continues for a while varies from speaker to speaker and from
token to token.
Hoi in 8(e) starts the same as the onset of ngang or nang1 and gradually falls to between 140 to 180Hz for females and 90
to 120Hz for males. Then it rises slightly again. In some cases, the rising part is absent and the tone continues to fall lower
than huyen.
Nga in 8(f) usually starts higher than hoi, around the onset of huyen, and falls steadily during the first 90 ms. At this point it
is either broken by a glottal stop or becomes very creaky between 90 and 120 ms. If the tone is broken by a glottal stop, the
pitch curve is interrupted in the middle of the tone. If it is creaky, the lowest point in nga is around 70Hz in Phuong. After the
creaky part, the tone rises. The height of the ending varies from speaker to speaker and from token to token.
In order to examine sac2 and nang2, it is necessary to use obstruent-final syllables. Sac2 in 8(g) has the highest starting
point and is short. It rises and ends after about 150ms for females and 100 ms for males. This difference between female and
male speech could also be a sociolinguistic marker because a long sac2 sounds more feminine. Nang2 in 8(h) is also very
short. This tone is very similar to huyen from beginning to end, but it is much shorter.
Figure 9 shows six tones for [ka] along with sac2 and nang2 for [ka:k] from a female. The range of F0 is between 50 and
350Hz with the highest point in sac2 and the lowest point in nang1. There is a variety of tonal shapes: tones are flat (level), go
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transparent cases, ripping the sides open frantically and stabbing the
needle with lightning swiftness into their occupants. Those in a dozen
or more cases I had swiftly treated thus before I dropped the tube
and needle and leapt back to the door, into the corridor. As I did so I
had seen the first of the strange, terrible shapes I had touched with
the needle beginning to stir, to move from their cases.
As I sprang back out into the corridor, though, the racing masses of
the serpent-creatures were but a scant hundred feet behind me, my
own companions racing out of the building ahead of me, now. The
serpent-things loosed no rays upon us, desiring, I knew, to return us
to that hell of living death from which we had escaped, but as I
sprang down the corridor they were so close behind that another
moment, I knew, would see my capture and that of my friends
ahead. Then, just as the serpent-creatures, racing behind me,
reached the door of the museum, they halted, recoiled. For out into
the corridor from that museum-hall had flopped a great, terrible
shape, the mighty disk of pale flesh with a single central eye that my
needle had been first to revive!
Instantly it had moved upon the serpent-creatures upon whom its
glaring eye fell, and before they could escape had thrown its vast
disk of flesh about a mass of scores of them, bunching its body
swiftly together then with terrific power and crushing them within it.
At another mass of them it leapt, ravening with terrific fury after its
prisonment of untold ages of living death, while out of the museum
there came after it the other shapes I had revived, awful insect-
beings that leapt upon the serpent-creatures with terrible claws and
fangs, heedless of the death-beams that flashed toward them, many-
limbed things of flesh that whirled forward as fiercely to the attack,
grotesque, terrible monsters of a dozen different sorts that leapt now
upon the serpent-creatures who had prisoned them for ages with
inconceivable raging power, heaping about them great masses of
crushed and mangled serpent-dead.
Only in a glance over my shoulder did I glimpse that massacre of the
serpent-creatures behind me, for I was racing on down the corridor
and out of the building into the narrow street, where my friends
awaited me. With a word I explained to them what had happened,
and instantly we set off down the street, between the great, towering
buildings of beaming blue force that lay silent and dead now in the
dusky darkness, only their own flickering light and that of the vast,
dim-red sun that swung in the black heavens above lighting us
forward as we raced on. Behind, though, in the great building from
which we had fled, were rising appalling cries, the hissing utterances
of the serpent-creatures and the strange and awful cries of the things
with which they battled.
Now about us were rising other cries as the serpent-creatures across
all the city began to rouse beneath the terrific din of the wild fight in
the central building. Behind us, as we raced on down the narrow
street, we saw them emerging from the buildings, gazing about, and
then as we were glimpsed, fleeing toward the landing-circle where
lay the ships, other cries went up and after us leapt the serpent-
things from all along the street, pouring into that street from its
buildings and from adjacent streets and racing after us.
But a few hundred yards ahead lay the landing-circle, and as we ran
on we could make out the gleaming, great shapes of the oval ships
lying upon it, could discern the shape of our own awaiting ship, at
the circle's edge, its door open before us. Toward that black opening,
as toward some tremendous magnet, we stumbled on with the last of
our strength, but close behind came the serpent-creatures in ever-
increasing masses, the alarm spreading now over all the gigantic city
about us, and there lay still a distance that seemed infinite between
us and that open door. Then, when we were but a scant hundred feet
from it, the serpent-creatures hardly more than that behind us, Korus
Kan slipped, stumbled and went down.
We wheeled around, reaching down to help him up, but halted even
as we did so. For the serpent-creatures behind us were within yards
of us now, hissing cries of triumph rising from them as they writhed
toward us. Then, in the next moment, from the great, looming bulk
of our ship ahead there stabbed down and over us a shaft of blinding
crimson light, a narrow, deadly ray that struck the writhing masses of
our pursuers and swept through them in a great, slicing curve,
sending them into annihilation in dazzling bursts of light as it touched
them. Those farther behind came racing on, nevertheless, but before
they could reach us we had stumbled on and into the ship, and with
space-doors clanging and generators suddenly droning loudly, our
ship shot up into the darkness just in time to escape a dozen pale
death-beams that sprang toward us from the mass of our pursuers.
Up into the darkness above the vast, blue-glowing city we flashed,
Jhul Din and Korus Kan and I bursting up into the pilot room and
replacing our follower there whose timely action had saved us.
Beneath us the whole city was rising as the alarm spread, lights
flashing out here and there among its buildings, serpent-hordes
pouring into the streets, while from the landing-circle from which we
had just risen there shot up after us a dozen long gleaming oval
ships, in close pursuit. So swiftly were they after us that before we
had fully realized their nearness, their death-beams were sweeping
and slicing through the darkness about us. I shouted a swift order,
Korus Kan whirled the controls about and sent our ship flashing
straight back into the mass of our dozen pursuers, and then we had
leapt through them, our red rays striking right and left as we did so,
and two of their great craft had flared there in the darkness above
the great city in blinding crimson light, and we were racing up into
the darkness again with the ten remaining ships farther behind, but
still speeding on our track.
Upward we shot with terrific speed, and in a moment the vast,
turning world beneath, covered with the masses of blue force-
structures, had contracted and dwindled to a mere point beneath us
as we fled up and outward into space. As we flashed up from it,
though, I had glimpsed rising from it a full five hundred serpent-
ships, with a score of the great disk attraction-ships, and as these
lifted to follow the ten that leapt close behind us, I saw that the
serpent-creatures were taking no slightest chance of our escape. I
turned to Korus Kan, swiftly, as our craft leapt upward, shouting to
him above the droning roar of the generators that filled our craft
now.
"Head straight out toward the great vibration-wall—toward the
opening in it!" I cried.
"We'll never get through that opening—between the space-forts!"
Jhul Din exclaimed. "They'll have received word of our escape, and
will be waiting for us!"
I shook my head. "We'll have to run between them and take our
chance!" I yelled. "It's our one chance of escape from this universe!"
Now the giant central world beneath was no longer visible, as we

raced upward and outward from it at terrific speed, and ahead
loomed one of the three giant suns that lay about that world. We
were leaping forward straight toward it, and in an instant it had
broadened across the heavens to a stupendous disk of raging
crimson fire, a thunderous, titanic sun into which we seemed
inevitably doomed to plunge, but as it flared across the firmament
before us Korus Kan swerved the controls, and we were flashing by
it, past the red star's edge and on outward through the dying
universe. Traveling at a speed that was all but suicidal to use inside
any universe, thrumming on at all but our utmost velocity, we reeled
outward through the throngs of dead and dying stars about us, while
behind us at a speed that matched our own our ten pursuers came
relentlessly on, with the five hundred-odd ships that we had seen
rising from the serpent-city following us in turn.
Out—out—the minutes of that mad outward flight through the dying
universe are but a confused, strange memory of a wild, awful race
through the massed dead and dying stars that thronged thick about
us, and between which we drove with such terrific swiftness that
hardly could we glimpse them in passing save on our space-chart. On
that chart I saw a close-massed cluster of dark suns full before us,
saw the Antarian swing the ship lightning-like sidewise to avoid it,
then sharply drive the controls back again as before us a crimson-
flaming star about which turned countless worlds of the serpent-
people loomed before us. Out—out—flashing crazily on past crimson
sun and thundering dark-star, through the massed suns of great dead
and dying clusters and past far-swinging planets, with the ten long
ships behind clinging remorselessly to us—out—out—until far ahead
there became visible across all the heavens before us the wavering
pale blue tight of the great vibration-wall that encircled this universe.
Out between the last of the dying universe's dark and dying suns we
were racing, toward that mighty wall, and as we leapt forward I
pointed toward it. "The space-forts!" I exclaimed. "Make for the
opening between them, Korus Kan—and slacken speed a little!"
Straight toward the two great metal structures set in the pale blue-
shining wall we leapt, two huge fortresses of gleaming metal from
whose narrow openings came brilliant white light, whose mighty
death-beam tubes swung threateningly out toward the space
between them, the single vibrationless opening in the vast and
impenetrable vibration-wall. They had been warned, were ready for
us, we knew, and knew too that not even by a miracle could our ship
run between those towering forts without coming under the deadly
beams, yet still toward them we leapt, at a speed slackened a little,
now, while after us like leaping things of prey came the ten ships,
rapidly overhauling us, flashing closer each moment.
We had almost reached the great opening in the wall, now, the ten
ships behind almost upon us, and as we flashed through space the
whole scene was like one from some weird dream—the thronging
dark and dying suns of the great universe behind us, the
tremendous, all but invisible, pale blue wall of light that enclosed it,
the single opening in that wall full before us, guarded on either side
by the mighty metal space-forts, the great ships leaping after us just
behind. We were flashing into the narrow opening—from the great
space-forts to right and left the deadly death-beams were stabbing
out toward us in scores, in hundreds—the ships behind were almost
upon us, their own death-beams stabbing toward us—and then I
cried a single word to Korus Kan. He thrust the controls suddenly
forward with a lightning-like move, and just as our ship was flashing
into the narrow opening it dipped sharply downward instead and
plummeted down through space while the ships just behind, before
they could dip with us, had rushed into the opening and into the hell
of death-beams that crossed and recrossed in it from the space-forts
on each side!
The next instant, while we curved swiftly upward again, we saw the
ten ships that had rushed into that opening whirling blindly about as
the death-beams from their own space-forts seared through them
and wiped out all life inside them. Those in the great space-forts,
realizing those ten to be their own ships, had turned off the beams in
the next moment but were an instant too late, since in the narrow
opening the ten ships were whirling crazily to that side and this,
without guiding intelligence inside them, smashing into each other
and into the space-forts on each side as they rushed insanely in all
directions. And even as that wild confusion inside the opening was at
its height our own ship had curved up and was flashing at full speed
into the opening, between the space-forts!
For an instant, in that wild chaos of whirling ships, those in the
space-forts did not glimpse our own flying ship and in that instant we
were half through the great opening between them. Then they had
seen us, had loosed their beams upon us in scores, and in the next
instant all about us seemed a single tremendous mêlée of aimlessly
whirling ships, and gigantic space-forts, and pale death-beams that
sliced and swept about us. Thick about us flashed those ghostly
fingers of death, and full before us two of the whirling ships collided
and smashed with terrific force, then Korus Kan had dodged them by
a swift shifting of the controls, our generators roared suddenly louder
as he turned on our utmost speed, and the crazy chaos of ships and
beams and forts about us had suddenly vanished, replaced by
darkness and silence unutterable.
We were through, were racing out into the void again with the great
vibration-wall and the dying universe it enclosed and the pursuing
serpent-ships inside it dropping farther behind each moment! In the
blackness that encircled us the dying universe was a far-flung,
dwindling glow behind us, and our own a far patch of misty light to
the left, but there shone in the darkness far ahead a misty disk of
radiant light, and it was toward this that our ship was heading. For
we were flashing out again upon our interrupted mission, were flying
out through the awful gulf of outer space once more toward the
Andromeda universe!
10. Flight and Pursuit
"Through the vibration-wall!" I cried, as our ship raced out at utmost
speed. "Out of the serpent-universe—and we may yet get to the
Andromeda universe in time!"
The eyes of Jhul Din and Korus Kan were as aflame with excitement
as my own, at that moment, and from beneath came the triumphant
shouts of our followers. There remained of the latter hardly more
than a bare score, I knew—few enough to handle the great ship, but
the control and operation of it were so simple that by standing
alternate watches we could hold our course through space. Briefly I
explained this to Korus Kan, he nodding assent, when from Jhul Din
there came a cry that caused both of us to spin around toward him in
swift alarm. The big Spican's eyes were fixed upon the space-chart
above, and as we turned he raised an arm toward it.
"The five hundred serpent-ships!" he cried. "They've come out
through the great wall too—they're after us!"
The blood in my veins seemed to chill with sudden renewal of our
former tenseness and terror, as on the space-chart we saw, racing
out after us from the dying universe, the five hundred-odd serpent-
ships that had risen from the giant central world to pursue us, and
that now, undeterred by the fate of the ten ships we had lured to
destruction, were speeding out into the great void after us. Moments
they had been delayed, apparently, by the confusion and chaos there
in the opening between the space-forts, but though in those
moments we had flashed far ahead their close-massed ships came on
after us at their topmost speed—a great pursuit that they were
carrying out into the void between the universes!
"They'll pursue us to the bitter end!" I exclaimed, my eyes on the
chart. "They'll go to any length rather than let us get to the
Andromeda universe!"
I wheeled about, my eyes seeking our speed-dials. Already we were
traveling through the void at our own highest velocity, a full ten
million light-speeds, but the shining mass of the Andromeda universe
seemed infinitely distant in the blackness ahead, with that swift,
relentless pursuit behind us. A moment more and Jhul Din strode out
of the pilot room down to the great, throbbing generators beneath,
striving to gain from them a fraction more of speed. For now was
beginning, we knew, the most bitter of all chases, a stern chase with
vast abysses of space lying between us and the universe that was our
goal, and with the five hundred flying craft of the serpent-creatures
close behind.
On—on—moment after moment, hour after dragging hour, our ship
hummed through the awful void, flashing with each moment through
countless millions of miles of the infinity of blackness and emptiness
that lay about us, with the half-thousand ships of the serpent-
creatures coming grimly on behind. The far-flung, dim-glowing dying
universe behind us glowed even dimmer, diminishing in extent, too,
as we shot onward, while before us the shining disk-mass of the
Andromeda universe shone ever more brightly; yet it was with a
terrifying slowness that that disk largened as we flashed toward it.
Tensely I stood with Korus Kan in the pilot room, gazing toward it,
and even then could not but reflect upon what a strange spectacle it
would all have presented to any observer who could have seen it: a
spectacle of one mighty ship pursued by a half-thousand, as it raced
through the void from one universe to another, manned by a score of
dissimilar beings drawn from the stars of still a third universe, and
carrying with them its fate.
But it was with dark enough thoughts, as our ship flashed on for hour
upon hour, that I myself contemplated the three universes that lay
before and behind and beside us. Before us the Andromeda universe
was shining in ever-increasing size and brilliance with each hour that
we raced toward it; but what, I wondered, would we find in that
universe even were we able to escape the swift and terrible pursuit
behind? Was there any chance of finding in it, in the race that held
sway over its suns and worlds, the help that could save our galaxy?
Was it not possible that even were we able to reach it we would be
treated by that race as merely other strangers and invaders from an
alien universe?
My eyes swung, too, toward the far little glow of light in the
blackness to our left, a patch of misty light that seemed very tiny in
the stupendous blackness and emptiness of space that lay about it.
Yet my mind's eye, leaping out across the terrific abysses that
separated us from it, could see that little light-patch as it was, could
make out the throngs of blazing stars that formed it—our galaxy, the
giant suns and smaller stars and thronging, far-swinging worlds
through which we had roamed with the ships of the Interstellar
Patrol. And I could see it as it would be now, convulsed with panic
fear, as from their great base of the Cancer cluster the vanguard of
the serpent-invaders spread terror and destruction out over the
neighboring suns, preparing the way for the mighty host of invaders
that was to follow.
But it was when I turned, glancing back to where the dying universe
of the serpent-people glowed dim and ominous behind us, decreasing
steadily in size as we flashed from it, that my mood was darkest. In
that mighty mass of dead and dying suns, I knew, there on the giant
world that turned between that central triplet of great, dying suns,
the serpent-races were completing their plans, were preparing to
launch themselves across the void toward my own universe. Already
their vast fleet of tens of thousands of ships was all but complete,
and soon would be completed, too, that gigantic death-beam
projector whose awful power no force could ever withstand. Our only
chance of preventing the descent of that vast horde and their terrible
weapon upon our galaxy was to reach the Andromeda universe and
procure there, somehow, the aid with which we might return and
crush the serpent-people in their own dying universe. And had we a
chance even to reach the Andromeda universe, with the half-
thousand craft of our serpent-pursuers driving relentlessly on our
track?
In the hours that followed, it was as though all else had ceased to
exist, so centered were our minds upon that remorseless pursuit. On
and on we flashed, our throbbing, beating generators flinging us
through the void with their utmost power, but behind came the
serpent-ships at their topmost speed, too, and though for forty-eight
hours we had raced through space we had covered hardly a third of
the distance to the Andromeda universe. As I raised my eyes to the
space-chart then, toward our single ship-dot and the swarm of dots
behind it, a sharp, cold thrill ran through me. For now I saw that the
gap of a few inches that separated us from them on the chart had
lessened a little, the swarm drawing noticeably closer toward our
single ship-dot. A moment I stared up at the chart in stunned silence;
then, with realization, a cry broke from me.
"The serpent-ships!" I cried. "They're overtaking us!"
My cry brought Jhul Din back up into the pilot room, and standing
together with eyes riveted upon the space-chart we saw clearly that
with every moment, slowly but steadily, the serpent-ships behind
were drawing nearer, though we were moving at our utmost speed.
Our ship, battered and worn by its tremendous flight through the
void from universe to universe, and by the space-fights it had come
through, was a fraction slower than the new ships of our pursuers,
and that fraction of difference in speed, we saw, was bringing them
closer upon us with each passing minute. Yet there was a chance
still, we knew, to gain the Andromeda universe before they overtook
us; so still at utmost velocity we flashed on, toward the shining
universe ahead.
On—on—the hours that followed, while we drove through the awful
void with the serpent-ships behind closing slowly and inexorably in
upon us, live in my memory only as a strange period of ceaseless,
rushing flight, with our eyes always upon the space-chart and upon
the brilliant disk-mass of light ahead. Twice we flashed through the
outskirts of great heat-regions glowing there in the void, and once
past the edge of one of the deadly areas of radio-active vibrations,
but ever after passing them our ship swung back toward the universe
ahead. That universe, as we hummed on hour upon hour, was
changing from a glowing disk of light into a great mass of individual
points of light, into a gigantic mass of stars that loomed in greater
radiant splendor before us with each passing hour. Green and red and
yellow and blue suns we could glimpse among its thronging
thousands, and others still white-hot with youth, shining with ever
greater brilliance as we drove through the void toward them.
Before us the great universe lay in all its true gigantic glory, when we
had covered two-thirds of the distance to it, but by that time our
eyes were not upon it at all, but upon the space-chart and the black
void behind us; since in the intervening hours the serpent-ships had
crept ever closer toward us, their swarm on the space-chart less than
an inch behind our racing ship-dot. Even that little gap, in the hours
that followed, was lessening, closing, while we three in the pilot room
watched it in tense silence. At last, with the blazing mass of suns of
the Andromeda universe stretched across the heavens but a dozen
hours ahead, we saw that the serpent-swarm on the chart was all but
touching our single ship-dot, saw that the end at last was at hand.
"They'll overhaul us in less than an hour!" exclaimed Jhul Din. "We'll
never even reach the Andromeda universe!"
To his outburst we made no answer, gazing in silence up at the big
space-chart, watching doom creep upon us. The serpent-swarm had
crept still farther upon us until its foremost dots seemed touching our
own ship-dot, its foremost racing craft in reach of our own. Then,
gazing through the rear distance-windows that projected from the
pilot room's sides, the big Spican uttered a low exclamation, pointing
mutely backward as we turned toward him. And as we gazed we saw,
far behind us there in the lightless void, a swarm of close-massed
light-points that steadily was largening, was drawing nearer toward
us, toward our doom. For it was the end, I knew. We had escaped
death in a hundred forms in the last days, but this we could not
escape, for with the Andromeda universe still hours away our chance
of escape was gone. Dodge and turn as we might, they would corner
us, would hem us in; and though we might destroy one or two of
their half-thousand ships, by no miracle could we hope to escape the
rest. For a moment a deathly silence held us as we stared back
toward those nearing light-points, and then I whirled around to the
order-tube.
"Battle-positions—all of the crew to the ray-tubes!" I shouted, and as
I turned back to the other two I cried to them, "We'll let some of
them feel our rays before they end us!"
I heard Jhul Din shout his approval, saw Korus Kan's eyes burning as
he glanced back toward our pursuers, heard from beneath the cries
of our crew as they took up their positions at the ray-tubes, ready to
smite a last blow at our enemies before they overwhelmed us. Behind
us in the blackness the onrushing serpent-ships had grown from
light-points to great dark oval shapes with white-lit pilot rooms at
their noses, the score of great disk attraction-ships racing on among
them. Ever closer they were leaping, and I knew that in a moment
more those disk-ships would be near enough to grasp us, would glow
with attractive force and hold us helpless while the death-beams of
the fighting-ships swept us. But as we tensely waited for the end, still
flashing on at our own full speed, there was a sharp cry from Korus
Kan, and we wheeled toward him to find him regarding the pilot
room's walls with eyes suddenly alight with new hope.
"It's another radio-active vibration region!" he cried, pointing toward
the walls and controls that were beginning to flicker out with the
strange, fluorescent light we had always dreaded. "If we plunge
straight into it there's a chance we can shake off the pursuit!"
I caught my breath at the suggestion but in an instant saw that he
was right, that though we might meet death amid the disintegrating
vibrations, we might perhaps escape and throw off our pursuers,
from whom death was certain as things were.
"It's a chance!" I exclaimed. "Head straight into the radio-active
region, Korus Kan!"
He glanced swiftly at the instruments before him, swerved our racing
ship a little to the right, and then walls and floor and mechanisms
about us were glowing with ever-waxing misty light as we drove in
toward the great region's heart. I felt the same tingling force flooding
through me that I had already once experienced, as our flying ship
raced on, again swaying and spinning as it flashed through the
mighty ether-currents whose meeting and collision formed the great
region of vibrations about us, though outside was only the same
blackness as before. With every moment, though, our ship, our
mechanisms, our own bodies, were glowing with waxing light, while
in the darkness behind I saw that the great swarm of ships racing
after us was itself aglow now with light, as it, too, rushed into the
great radio-active region after us. And still, with a courage that
matched our own desperation, they were speeding after and closer to
us, undeterred even by the crumbling death that flooded space all
about them and us now.
Glowing ship and glowing bodies, force that rapidly was overcoming
us with a dizzy nausea and that was crumbling the walls and
machinery about us, the gathered suns of the Andromeda universe
far ahead and the glowing half-thousand pursuing ships just behind—
all these were but a mad chaos in our minds as we reeled on, farther
and farther into the mighty radio-active region. I heard even above
the roaring of our generators a clatter of falling metal somewhere
toward the ship's rear, while even about us the walls and all else were
crumbling, like sugar in water, glowing and disintegrating, as our
whole ship was beginning to break up. Now, too, as the great swarm
of ships behind raced ever closer a score or more of their number
had drawn level with us, on our right, attaining that position by
slanting in to cut us off when we had swerved in toward the radio-
active region. And as pursued and pursuers raced on, all glowing and
disintegrating alike, that score of ships to our right was pressing ever
closer toward us.
Nearer they came, and then from their glowing ships toward our own
stabbed the pale death-beams, sweeping about us as we flashed on,
a shining mark. As they did so, though, our own red shafts burned
out swiftly, two of those attacking ships flaring to nothingness
beneath them, while with a swift turn to the left Korus Kan had
avoided the pale beams. That turn, though, took us now every
moment outward once more from the radio-active region's center,
forcing us out once more into clear space where the serpent-ships
could annihilate us without danger to themselves. Out and out we
flashed, and though our ship and all in it still glowed with the
fluorescent light, that glow was waning, and the clang of falling metal
from beneath, from the ship's disintegrating sides had ceased. Out—
out—the score of ships to our right joining with the greater mass
behind us again, and all drawing closer toward us, until the tingling
nausea that had filled us had vanished, the glowing light of our ships
and theirs vanishing likewise. Then, in one great mass, they were
leaping again upon us.
Our lives at last within their grasp, they flashed after us and toward
us, and I knew that an instant more would see them about us, their
death-beams striking at us from all around as they encircled us. I
gazed ahead for a moment, to where the giant universe of
Andromeda stretched like a great rampart of burning suns across the
black, cold heavens, still hours away from us, and then gazed back to
where the close-massed hundreds of serpent-ships leapt after and
upon us, the death-beam tubes in their sides already swinging
toward us. Then in me, at that instant of onrushing doom, there
flamed up a strange, wild rage, a fierce, utter fury that had grown in
me during all the struggles and flights that had been ours since first
we had met these serpent-creatures. I wheeled around to Jhul Din
and Korus Kan, my anger breaking from me in a fiery shout.
"Turn the ship square around and halt, Korus Kan!" I cried. "We of
the Interstellar Patrol are not going to be picked off as we run—we're
going to turn and face them head-on!"
Korus Kan's eyes flamed at my cry, his hands moved swiftly on the
controls, and then our ship had curved suddenly about and had
slowed and stopped, swinging around and hanging motionless in
space, facing our enemies. Even as we had curved and stopped, they
too had swiftly halted, as though suspicious for the moment of some
trap, and hung before us in the black gulf of space, facing us. Then
there was an instant of utter stillness and silence, as there in the void
we faced them, our ship motionless in space, we three in the pilot
room gazing toward their own great swarm of ships hanging
motionless before us; the mighty Andromeda universe flaming in the
heavens behind us, now, and the far, dim glow of the dying serpent-
universe in the blackness ahead, and the misty little circle of light
that was our own galaxy away to the right; all these lay about us in a
silence that was the silence of doom. For a single moment the great
tableau held, and then, disdaining to use their attraction-ships upon
us now, the great swarm of serpent-ships leapt as one toward us,
their hundreds of death-beams stabbing toward us!
But as they did so, as they sprang upon us there in space, there leapt
from above and behind us a mighty swarm of other ships—long,
slender, flat, gleaming ships entirely different from the oval-shaped
serpent-craft, or even from the cigar-like ships of our own galaxy—
long, flat ships like none we had ever seen before, that flashed down
over and past us straight upon the serpent-fleet! From the sides of
these strange new ships there projected thick, squat cylinders that
were pointed now toward the serpent-ships before us, and though no
ray or beam could be seen issuing from those cylinders, the serpent-
ships at which they were aimed were crumpling, were contracting
and folding up into shapeless masses of crumpled metal, as though
crushed in the grasp of a giant hand! And as that mighty swarm of
strange, flat ships flashed down upon the serpent-fleet that reeled
back and recoiled from its terrific blows, I heard a wild cry from Korus
Kan, as he and Jhul Din stared out with me.
"Strange ships attacking our pursuers!" he cried. "They're ships that
have come out from the Andromeda universe to save us from the
serpent-creatures' pursuit!"
11. Into the Andromeda Universe

As the mighty swarm of Andromeda ships from behind us drove down
upon the half-thousand serpent-craft ahead, I could only stare for a
moment in stupefied surprize, so stunning had been our sudden
transition from death to deliverance. I saw the long, flat craft of the
Andromedans, a full thousand in number, flashing down on the
serpent-ships in one great swoop, saw the latter, in groups, in
dozens, in scores, crumpling and constricting as the deadly cylinders
of the Andromedan ships were turned toward them. Within an
instant, it seemed, a full two hundred of the half-thousand serpent-
ships had crumpled and whirled away beneath the terrible, invisible
force of the cylinders, though death-beams were raging out thickly all
about the swooping Andromedan ships. Then, with almost half their
fleet wiped out, the remaining three hundred serpent-ships, including
their score of great disk-attraction-ships, had whirled around and
were racing back into space toward their own dying universe, fleeing
from the terrific blows of the attacking ships that had come out from
the Andromeda universe ahead, just in time to save us.
Now, as the serpent-fleet flashed from sight, into the void toward its
own universe, the thousand Andromedan ships massed swiftly and
moved toward our own, that hung still motionless there in the gulf of
space. In tense silence we watched them come, hoping that they
might not set us down, too, as enemies because of our serpent-ship,
but they turned none of their deadly cylinders toward us. Those
cylinders, as I was later to learn, were in reality projectors that shot
forth a shaft of invisible force, one that caused the ether about any
ship it struck to compress about that ship instantly with terrific force,
compressing thus into small compass the ether-vibrations that were
the matter of the ship, and thus crumpling that matter itself, in an
instant. It was a weapon fully as terrible as the crimson destruction-
rays of our galaxy's ships or the pale death-beams of the serpent-
creatures, a shaft of crumpling force that we knew could destroy us
instantly. Instead of loosing it upon us, though, they slanted down
until one of their foremost ships was hanging just above our own.
We guessed then that they meant to enter our ship, and in a moment
our guess was confirmed as the long, flat ship hovering above sank
downward until its lower surface was lying along the upper surface of
our own oval craft, the two touching. Then we heard a section of the
underside of the ship above sliding back, and a moment later, at my
order, one of our crew slid open our own upper space-door. The
openings in the two ships, in the upper side of ours and the lower
side of theirs, were thus together, pressed so closely by the weight of
the upper ship as it pressed down upon us that it formed a
hermetically sealed opening connecting the two. Then, down through
that opening from the ship above, down into the corridor of our ship
and toward our pilot room, there came a half-dozen of the
Andromedans from the ship above us, a half-dozen of the people of
the Andromeda universe.
I do not know what weird and alien shapes we had expected to see
in these beings of a different universe, but I do know that never had
our imaginations envisaged creatures of so utterly strange a nature
as these that came toward us now. For they were gaseous! Tall
columns of misty green gas, that held always to the same pillar-like
outline, as unchanging of form as though of solid flesh, and that were
gliding along the corridor toward us! Upright, unchanging columns of
green, opaque vapor, from near the top of whose six feet of height
there branched out on each side a smaller arm of the same thick
green gas, arms that they moved at will, and in which some of them
held instruments and weapons! Tall, erect columns of thick, green
vapor, without features of any kind that we could see, that yet were
living, intelligent and powerful beings like ourselves! Their bodies,
their two arms, their very organs and features and senses formed of
gas, just as our bodies are solid, and that of a jellyfish liquid!
Down the corridor they came toward us, gliding smoothly forward,
halting just before us and surveying us, I knew, by whatever strange
sense of sight was within their gaseous bodies. Dumbly we stared
toward them, for the first time now wholly appreciating the immense
difference between us and them; then, at a loss for another gesture,
I held out my hand toward the foremost of them. Instantly his own
arm came out toward me, gripped my hand with a grip as solid as
though that arm had been of flesh instead of gas, a grasp that
though cold was real and tangible. When the one before me had
withdrawn his grasp, then I spoke aloud to him, but there came no
reply. Instead the Andromedan extended toward me, in the grasp of
his other arm, a small globe of what seemed misty glass, a few
inches in diameter and mounted upon a little metal base. As he held
it, though, pressing a tiny button in the base, the misty globe
suddenly glowed with light, and then in it I could see figures moving,
as though in some tiny cinema-screen.
The scene in it was that of a great, gleaming-walled room, utterly
strange in appearance, with a mass of shining, unfamiliar apparatus
grouped about it, among which moved a dozen or more
Andromedans like those before me, upright columns of green gas
gliding to and fro, inspecting and tending the different mechanisms.
Then all of them grouped about a single one, a vast tube that I
sensed was a great telescope, which pointed out into the blackness
of space, and down from which there fell upon a broad white surface
a swift-moving picture, one of a single oval space-ship rushing
through the void, with Korus Kan, Jhul Din and myself visible in its
white-lit pilot room, while not far behind it there raced in pursuit of it
a great swarm of serpent-manned ships. Then the Andromedans
grouped about that great telescope were seen moving swiftly over to
an apparatus at the room's center, apparently one of communication;
and the next moment the whole scene had vanished, and was
replaced by one of a thousand long, flat ships—Andromedan ships—
slanting swiftly upward from a great world and into space. Then that,
too, had clicked off; there was a flashing scene of those same
thousand ships leaping upon our pursuers as they had done but a
moment before; then all light in the little instrument had vanished as
the Andromedan before me snapped off its control button.
A moment we remained in silence, puzzled, until Korus Kan broke the

stillness with an exclamation. "It's a communication instrument, Dur
Nal," he exclaimed, "one that shows in visible pictures the thoughts
of whoever it is connected to—it's their method of communication
with each other, apparently."
I nodded now, with sudden understanding. "Then that's the way that
they discovered our peril—came to save us!" I said. "That's what
they're telling us!"
But now the Andromedan had held the little instrument forward to
me, and as I took it, in some perplexity, he silently indicated two little
round metal plates inset on its bottom, which he had grasped when
holding the thing and which I now grasped in turn, pressing the tiny
control button as I did so. The next instant a current of thrilling force
seemed racing up my arms, through my brain, and in the little
glowing sphere appeared only a confusion of vague forms. Then, as
my brain cleared, I concentrated my thoughts on our mission and its
reason; and at once, in the instrument's glowing sphere, there
appeared clearly the five thousand serpent-ships attacking our
universe, destroying our fleet by means of their death-beams and
attraction-ships, settling upon the worlds and suns of the Cancer
cluster. Then, with the shifting of my thoughts, there was a glimpse
of our ship flashing out into the void from our own universe toward
that of the Andromeda and then the little sphere had gone black as I
snapped off the button that controlled it.
For the moment we could not know whether we had been fully
understood by the beings before us, but the next instant one of them
pointed with a gaseous limb toward the gathered suns of the
Andromeda universe, flaring in the blackness ahead, and as we
nodded and pointed also, they stepped over beside us. The next
moment the opening in the under side of the ship above and the
space-door in our own ship had clanged shut, and as the whole great
fleet of ships about us began to move toward the Andromeda
universe, Korus Kan opened up the power of our own generators,
moving smoothly along among them. Within moments more, the
strange, gaseous forms of the Andromedans standing there beside
us, our ship and all those about it were flashing at full speed toward
the great galaxy ahead.
From the ship's hull beneath I could hear an odd, grating sound, as
of the clash of metal on metal, that continued to come to my ears as
we flashed on, but in the moments, the hours that followed, I paid
but small attention to it, engrossed as we all were in the magnificent
spectacle of the universe ahead. Like a tremendous belt of suns
across the black heavens it was, largening in vastness and brilliance
with every moment that we flashed nearer, until by the time we had
raced toward it for a half-score of hours it seemed to fill all the
firmament before us with its hosts of flaming stars. We were flashing
on in the same course as the ships about us, heading toward a spot
where there shone two great yellow suns that were like twin wardens
of this mighty universe. And as we hummed through the void toward
them, sweeping in nearer to this great galaxy's edge, the ships about
us and our own ship, too, had begun to slacken their tremendous
speed, until at last at a reduced velocity we were driving in past the
outmost suns of the Andromeda universe.
The dull grating sound from beneath was persisting, still, but now
interest in all else had left me as there spread before and about me
the wonders of this stupendous universe. A universe it was as large
as our own, as large as the dying serpent-universe, but different from
either. For if ours was a young universe, with the majority of our stars
glowing with blue and white-hot youth, and the serpent-universe an
aged and dying one, with burned-out and waning crimson suns, this
one before us was a universe in its prime—a universe the vast
majority of whose suns were flaming yellow with their greatest
splendor, a golden galaxy of living stars infinitely different from the
dim, dying universe from which we had just escaped, and infinitely
different, too, from the giant, white young suns and raw, vast nebulæ
of our own youthful universe.
As we sped in between those gathered, flaming suns, though, as we
drove in past the edge of their great mass, my eyes began to take in
their position and arrangement, and as they did so I saw that not
alone in age or youthfulness was this universe different from any
other I had seen. For as we flashed into the thronging suns, past a
great group of them massed to our right, I saw that the suns of that
group were gathered in a great circle, a score of mighty flaming suns,
each set in position with mathematical exactness, forming a perfect
circle as they hung here in space, one of the two great yellow suns I
had glimpsed from afar having a place in that circle. And inside that
mighty circle of suns I glimpsed a vast mass of swarming planets—
hundreds, thousands even, of great, turning worlds that moved in
regular orbits inside the great ring of suns about them, lit and
warmed perpetually by their encircling fires.
Stupefied, stunned, by that tremendous sight, I did not, could not,
for the moment understand the significance of what I was seeing.
But as we flashed on past the great circle and its swarming enclosed
planets, as we approached another close group of suns, I saw that it,
too, was formed of a score or more of great suns grouped in a
perfect circle like the first, and that inside that circle of suns there
swung also hundreds and thousands of whirling worlds! And beyond
it shone another mighty ring of suns, and another, and others, as far
as the eye could reach, all the suns in all this tremendous universe
being grouped by the score into great circles inside of which swung
countless planets! And then, at last, there broke upon my reeling
brain the meaning of what I was seeing.
"Suns in circles!" I cried, as I gazed out across that mighty vista.
"They've done this themselves—consciously, deliberately! They've
placed all the suns of their universe in great circle-groups, so that
inside those circles their countless peoples can exist!"
For I saw, now, that it was so, that only by intelligent design could
the countless swarms of thronging suns about us ever have been
placed in these mathematically perfect circles, inside which their
great planets swung. Long ago their universe must have been much
like our own, a great chaos of suns reeling blindly in all directions,
swarming like a vast hive of stars, each with its own few planets
moving about it. But as their numbers had increased, as they had
come to need every world, every planet for their existence, they had
grasped their suns with titanic, unguessable forces, had swung them
from their accustomed chaos into order, into great circles, placing
inside those circles all their countless worlds—worlds of which
thousands could then exist upon the light and heat of a mere score of
suns by having those suns grouped in a ring about them.
Now, driving in past great circle after circle of flaming suns, past the
countless planets that moved inside those circles, we were flashing
on with the ships about us toward the center of this strange and
mighty universe. On our space-chart I could see that thick about us
were great masses of interstellar traffic, which cleared away before
us as we drove inward. Circle after circle of fiery suns we were
leaving behind, mass upon mass of swarming planets inside, but
never on our space-charts showed any wandering dark-stars, or
meteor-swarms, or vagabond, sunless worlds, all matter in this
universe apparently having been swept up by the Andromedans and
used as habitations for their races, inside the great sun-circles. A
gigantic mass of perfectly grouped stars they stretched about us,
those sun-circles, filling the heavens about us; but now, far ahead,
there shone out ever more brilliant at the center of this great
universe another great circle of suns, that seemed the largest in all
this universe. A score of titanic, flaming stars, they hung there at this
galaxy's center, and it was toward these that our racing ships were
heading.
Toward them we gazed with intense interest as our ships fled on, but
suddenly were startled back to realization of our immediate
surroundings by a great rumbling and grating from beneath, our ship
swaying to one side and heeling sickeningly over, even as it flashed
ahead. In sudden tense silence we stood, listening to that rumbling
and cracking beneath, and then up from the speech-tube beside me
there came a startled cry from one of our crew below.
"The ship's splitting!" he cried. "The walls have been grating and
giving ever since we ran through that radio-active disintegrating-
region—and now the ship's beginning to break in two!"
There was an instant of silence in the pilot room, the only sound that
fearful grating rumble from beneath as gradually the ship's walls,
weakened and crumbled by the disintegrating vibrations of the radio-
active region through which we had plunged, began at last to split. A
moment more, we knew, would see our ship riven apart there in
space, with instant annihilation the fate of all of us. Silent, stunned,
for a moment we stood there, the Andromedans beside us
comprehending the situation as well as ourselves; then I whirled
around to Korus Kan, flung my arm up toward the great central sun-
circle that lay now full ahead, nearest of all the sun-groups to our
onward-racing ships.
"Full speed!" I cried to him. "There's a chance still that we can get to
those suns and worlds before the ship breaks up!"
With that cry the Antarian flung open the power-control, and
instantly our ship, rumbling and groaning still as its walls gave about
us, plunged on at utmost speed. I knew that we had perhaps a
chance in a thousand to reach the worlds inside that sun-circle before
our craft broke beneath our feet, but it was our only chance, and as
we reeled on now with the generators roaring their greatest power,
and with a thunderous, cracking roar rising from beneath also as our
walls parted, it was with the consciousness that the next few
moments would seal our fate. The great fleet of Andromedan ships
about us had leapt forward with us, were behind and about us, but
for the moment all our attention was centered upon the great circle
of suns ahead, largening before us swiftly as with one last great burst
of speed our ship shot through the void toward it.
Our ship swayed blindly over, now, even as it reeled on through
space, another great crash of riven metal coming to our ears from
beneath, the floor slanting steeply up beneath us. Flung against the
wall as we were, though, Korus Kan clung still to the controls,
heading our swaying flying ship straight on toward the sun-circle,
until in a moment more we had reached that circle, were slanting
downward at the same terrific speed above that great ring of mighty
suns. Inside that vast circle there moved a mighty swarm of
thronging worlds, as in the other sun-circles, but at the very center of
this vast swarm of planets there hung motionless a single gigantic
planet, largest by far of all in this universe, a huge central world
down toward which our own crazily swaying ship and the ships about
us were slanting!
Down—down—there was a sudden rush of air about our ship as we
shot toward the surface of the great planet, and I had a flashing
glimpse of that surface, scores of miles beneath, through our window
—a smooth, park-like surface swarming with hordes of the gaseous
Andromedans and with ascending and descending ships, a surface in
which I seemed to glimpse innumerable round, well-like openings,
but upon which I could see no buildings. Abruptly, though, even as I
glanced downward, there came a tremendous final cracking from our
ship's center, each end tipped sharply down from that center as the
crumbling craft broke cleanly in half, and then the two wrecked
halves of it were whirling down toward the surface of the great world
far below!
12. The Council Decides
Of the moment following, while we rushed thus down to death, flung
into a corner of the pilot room by the ship's splitting, I remember
most clearly the rush of cold air that shrieked through our falling half.
Had our ship broken in empty space instead of in the air of that great
world's atmosphere, we would have met instant annihilation; since
even the gaseous Andromedans, as I was later to find, could not live
save in air, like ourselves, their gaseous bodies disintegrating in any
other element. For the moment, though, as we flashed down toward
the surface of the world beneath, it seemed that death for us had
been delayed but a moment. We were whirled crazily around as our
wrecked half of the ship fell, and through the window I had a glimpse
of the ground beneath, rushing up to meet us with appalling speed. I
tensed for the crash, and for death, as it leapt up toward us—nearer
—nearer——
There was a hoarse cry from Jhul Din, and I glimpsed in the next
instant a dark, great shape that swooped down past and beneath us
from above. The next instant, just as I waited for the annihilating
impact with the ground, there was a slight jar, a clang of metal
against metal from beneath, and then swiftly, miraculously, our wild
fall was slackening. In another moment the ground was just beneath
us, and smoothly and slowly we sank downward, coming to rest upon
it without a jar! I staggered up to the window, gazing forth, stunned
by that sudden escape from inescapable annihilation, and then saw
the explanation of it. Our half of the wrecked ship was resting upon
the back of one of the great, flat Andromedan ships, that had flashed
down under it and caught it upon itself, bearing us down to the
ground and saving us from the crash and from death!
A moment more and we were stumbling out of the pilot room, down
to the ground from the Andromedan ship on which we rested. As we
reached it I saw that the other falling half of our ship had been saved
in the same way by another Andromedan craft, lying close beside us
on that craft with the members of our crew in it pouring out to join
us. Another instant and they stood with us, a vast mass of the
gliding, gaseous Andromedans that swarmed on this world's surface
having collected about us, a strange, silent horde that I knew were
contemplating us with their alien sense of sight. Quickly toward us,
though, came the half-dozen Andromedans who had been with us in
the ship and had escaped with us, leading us now through the
throngs of gaseous figures about us toward some destination of their
own.
As we moved along with them, though, our interest was not so much
in our destination as in the stupendous and unparalleled scene about
us. Far away to the distant horizons stretched the smooth surface of
this great world, covered with an even growth of jet-black sod that
gave it an extraordinarily park-like appearance, with here and there
tall, spiked growths or plants of the same ebon black. That blackness,
as I guessed, was due to the perpetual, fierce light of the great ring
of suns that belted the firmament overhead, the circle of suns at
whose center this mighty planet hung, and whose ceaseless light
would naturally give to this world's vegetation a pigmentation of
deepest black. The belt of giant suns above, the countless swarms of
Andromedans about us, like gliding pillars of misty green gas, the
ebon vegetation, the masses of mighty ships that rose and
descended ceaselessly in the broad areas set aside for them—all
these held us silent with the silence of awe, as with our guides we
moved on.
It was none of these things, though, wonderful as they were, that
intrigued me most of all about us—it was the total absence of
buildings, of visible structures or habitations, on all the surface of this
world. The smooth black sod, the countless Andromedan throngs, the
departing and arriving ships—these were all that were visible about
us, all except a great number of round, well-like shafts that opened in
the ground everywhere about us. These shafts were some six feet
across, and were placed always in pairs, or groups of two, and as I
gave them more attention I saw, in a moment, that they held the
answer to the absence of all buildings about us. For into them and
out of them the gaseous Andromedans were moving in ceaseless
streams, moving straight into one empty shaft and sinking smoothly
downward out of sight, upheld by some force at the shaft's bottom
beneath that nullified gravity just enough to make it possible for
them to float gently down. From the other shaft of the pair, too, other
Andromedans would be rising smoothly upward through the air,
reaching the surface and gliding away, that other ascending shaft
having at its bottom a constant force sufficient not only to nullify
completely the pull of gravity but to give all in the shaft a slight
upward thrust.
Into these shafts, as we moved past them, I glanced down, and saw
that far beneath they opened into brilliant-lit rooms and halls, some
of great size. I understood, then, how they had come to be used,
how the Andromedans, their vast hordes cramped upon the surface
of their worlds, had removed all buildings from the surface and had
sunk them deep in the ground itself, subterranean buildings that
could be entered or left by the ascending and descending shafts, and
that gave them all the surface of their worlds free for their ships and
to move about on. In and out of the great buildings sunken in the
ground beneath us were moving constant streams of Andromedans,
up and down the shafts; and now we saw that before us lay a pair of
such shafts much greater in size than all others we had seen, and the
center of a great rush of traffic of the gaseous beings about us. It
was toward these greater shafts that our Andromedan companions
were leading us, the figures before us giving way as we approached.
A moment more and we stood at the edge of the descending shaft,
the Andromedans beside us motioning toward it and moving over its
edge, sinking smoothly downward. Hesitatingly I followed, stepped
from the edge into the empty air of the shaft; but the next moment
my fear left me, for instead of plunging down a dead weight, I and
my companions who had followed me were sinking downward as
gently as though gripped and upheld by unseen hands. Down we
floated, through the great shaft bright-lit by the belted suns above,
down until we were sinking down out of the shaft itself into a vast,
white-lit hall that stretched away for a great distance in all directions
from us, and down from the center of whose ceiling, where the two
great shafts opened from above, we were sinking.
Smoothly we sank downward from the great hall's ceiling to its floor,
landing upon a great disk inset in that floor beneath the descending
shaft and glowing with dark purple light, the glowing force that
combatted gravitation enough in the shaft above it to allow us to
float gently down. For the moment, though, I paid not so much
attention to it as to the strange, vast hall in which we now stood.
Colossal in size and circular of shape, the mighty, white-lit room was
as large or larger even than the great Council Hall of the Federated
Suns, in our own universe, though it was far different in appearance.
There were in it no ranks of seats, the smooth floor being divided by
crossing black lines into thousands of squares of equal size, and in
each of those squares there rested, motionless, one of the gaseous
Andromedans, thousands upon thousands of them, like massed
columns of thick green vapor, being grouped in the great room about
us.
We stood ourselves on a section of the floor at the room's very
center, raised a few feet above the rest of the floor, and except for
the two purple-glowing disks beneath the ascension and descension
shafts the only object upon this raised portion was a great globe of
what seemed misty glass, exactly like the tiny one with which the
Andromedans had first communicated with us, but of vastly greater
size, being some dozen feet in diameter. Toward this, as we hesitated
there at the center of that gigantic assemblage of strange, silent
figures, there moved the leader of the Andromedans who had
accompanied us. He grasped with his two gaseous arms the metal
studs that projected out from the great globe's base, and at once the
misty sphere glowed with inward light, while in it appeared the
thousand Andromedan ships, flashing out into the void, rescuing us
from the serpent-fleet, and bringing us back into their own universe,
a swift succession of explanatory scenes.
This explanation completed, the Andromedan moved back from the
great sphere and motioned me toward it. Slowly I stepped forward,
sensing the gaze of the massed, silent thousands on me. I knew that
it was the supreme moment of our mission, the moment for which
we had battled our way through three universes, the chance to
obtain from this great council of the Andromedans the help that
might save our universe. I glanced back to the anxious faces of my
friends, drew a long breath, and then grasped the two studs before
me, concentrating all my thoughts on what I wished to express, as
the big sphere above glowed with inward light again, the thrilling
current from it rushing into my brain.
In the glowing globe now appeared our universe, a great galaxy of
stars floating in space like their own. Swiftly, with shifting thoughts, I
showed them its throngs of peopled worlds, the traffic that swept
between its suns, the ordered life of its teeming, dissimilar races.
Then as my thoughts shifted again they saw the first five thousand
serpent-ships rushing in upon that galaxy, destroying all our fleet and
settling upon the suns and worlds of the Cancer cluster, saw us
fleeing inward and then turning to capture one of the serpent-ships
by boarding it in mid-space. Then, briefly, the globe flashed forth the
interior of our own great Council Hall, with our Council Chief
exhibiting and explaining the records of the serpent-people which we
had captured in their ship. In a swift flash I explained the meaning of
those records, a flash that showed the serpent-people, masters of the
suns and worlds of our own universe, sailing out with increased
powers to attack the Andromeda universe, and as that flashing scene
showed in the great globe I saw a silent stir of excitement run
through the massed thousands about me.
In another moment, though, the globe's scene had shifted back to
the Council Hall, with ourselves receiving our orders from the Council
Chief, entering our captured serpent-ship and slanting up and
outward, bursting past the patrolling serpent-ships, through the void
of outer space, only to be captured by the other serpent-ships that
had come out to meet us. Our flight then to the serpent-universe, our
glimpse of the vast serpent-fleet being built, and the colossal death-
beam cone, and the escape of Jhul Din appeared in swift succession.
Then came our own strange captivity, our rescue by Jhul Din and
escape outward from the serpent-universe through the great space-

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Features and Complexity

(6) Vertical complexity

The Traditional Classification

The Mismatch Problem

(11) Traditional classification of tones according to tonal shape and height

ngang huyen sac nang hoi nga

(20) Flip-Flop rule

Six Tones or Eight?

Figure 4. Normalized mean F0 in the Hanoi dialect (from Vu 1982)

/toj/ (sac1) ‘dark’ > toj (ngang)+toj (sac1) ‘rather dark’

The Additional Tones

(60) Borrowings with sac2 or nang2

Figure 6. Mean F0 of eight tones in Northern Vietnamese (from Vu 1982)

Now the giant central world beneath was no longer visible, as we

11. Into the Andromeda Universe

A moment we remained in silence, puzzled, until Korus Kan broke the

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