Editing International Phonetic Alphabet (section)

==== Pitch and tone ====
{{See also|tone letter}}
{{angbr IPA|ꜛ ꜜ}} are defined in the ''Handbook'' as "upstep" and "downstep", concepts from tonal languages. However, the upstep symbol can also be used for [[pitch reset]], and the IPA ''Handbook'' uses it for prosody in the illustration for Portuguese, a non-tonal language.

Phonetic pitch and phonemic tone may be indicated by either diacritics placed over the nucleus of the syllable{{snd}}e.g., high-pitch {{angbr IPA|é}}{{snd}}or by [[Chao tone letter]]s placed either before or after the word or syllable. There are three graphic variants of the tone letters: with or without a stave, and facing left or facing right from the stave. The stave was introduced with the 1989 Kiel Convention, as was the option of placing a staved letter after the word or syllable, while retaining the older conventions. There are therefore six<!--One of our sources says 'seven', but the staveless tone letters were only allowed before the word/syllable pre-Kiel, and that was not changed in the Kiel Convention.--> ways to transcribe pitch/tone in the IPA: i.e., {{angbr IPA|é}}, {{angbr IPA|˦e}}, {{angbr IPA|e˦}}, {{angbr IPA|꜓e}}, {{angbr IPA|e꜓}} and {{angbr IPA|ˉe}} for a high pitch/tone.<ref name=report75-76 /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Maddieson |first=Ian |date=December 1990 |title=The transcription of tone in the IPA |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0025100300004242/type/journal_article |journal=Journal of the International Phonetic Association |language=en |volume=20 |issue=2 |pages=31 |doi=10.1017/S0025100300004242 |s2cid=144897531 |issn=0025-1003 |access-date=29 May 2023 |archive-date=1 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701181159/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-international-phonetic-association/article/abs/transcription-of-tone-in-the-ipa/723944977809BFB13914AF78EAAAC8E3 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Heselwood|2013|p=7}}</ref> Of the tone letters, only left-facing staved letters and a few representative combinations are shown in the summary on the ''Chart'', and in practice it is currently more common for tone letters to occur after the syllable/word than before, as in the Chao tradition. Placement before the word is a carry-over from the pre-Kiel IPA convention, as is still the case for the stress and upstep/downstep marks. The IPA endorses the Chao tradition of using the left-facing tone letters, {{angbr IPA|˥ ˦ ˧ ˨ ˩}}, for underlying tone, and the right-facing letters, {{angbr IPA|꜒ ꜓ ꜔ ꜕ ꜖}}, for surface tone, as occurs in [[tone sandhi]], and for the intonation of non-tonal languages.{{NoteTag|Maddieson and others have noted that a phonemic/phonetic distinction should be handled by /slash/ or [bracket] delimiters. However, the reversed tone letters remain in use to distinguish tone sandhi from lexical tone when both are phonemic.}} In the Portuguese illustration in the 1999 ''Handbook'', tone letters are placed before a word or syllable to indicate prosodic pitch (equivalent to {{IPA|[↗︎]}} global rise and {{IPA|[↘︎]}} global fall, but allowing more precision), and in the Cantonese illustration they are placed after a word/syllable to indicate lexical tone. Theoretically therefore prosodic pitch and lexical tone could be simultaneously transcribed in a single text, though this is not a formalized distinction.

Rising and falling pitch, as in [[contour tone]]s, are indicated by combining the pitch diacritics and letters in the table, such as grave plus acute for rising {{IPA|[ě]}} and acute plus grave for falling {{IPA|[ê]}}. Only six combinations of two diacritics are supported, and only across three levels (high, mid, low), despite the diacritics supporting five levels of pitch in isolation. The four other explicitly approved rising and falling diacritic combinations are high/mid rising {{IPA|[e᷄]}}, low rising {{IPA|[e᷅]}}, high falling {{IPA|[e᷇]}}, and low/mid falling {{IPA|[e᷆]}}.{{NoteTag|A work-around sometimes seen when a language has more than one rising or falling tone, and the author wishes to avoid the poorly legible diacritics {{angbr IPA|e᷄, e᷅, e᷇, e᷆}} but does not wish to employ tone letters, is to restrict the generic rising {{angbr IPA|ě}} and falling {{angbr IPA|ê}} diacritics to the higher-pitched of the rising and falling tones, say {{IPA|/e˥˧/}} and {{IPA|/e˧˥/}}, and to resurrect the retired (pre-Kiel) IPA subscript diacritics {{angbr IPA|e̗}} and {{angbr IPA|e̖}} for the lower-pitched rising and falling tones, say {{IPA|/e˩˧/}} and {{IPA|/e˧˩/}}. When a language has either four or six level tones, the two middle tones are sometimes transcribed as high-mid {{angbr IPA|e̍}} (non-standard) and low-mid {{angbr IPA|ē}}. Non-standard {{angbr IPA|e̍}} is occasionally seen combined with acute and grave diacritics or with the macron to distinguish contour tones that involve the higher of the two mid tone levels.}}

The Chao tone letters, on the other hand, may be combined in any pattern, and are therefore used for more complex contours and finer distinctions than the diacritics allow, such as mid-rising {{IPA|[e˨˦]}}, extra-high falling {{IPA|[e˥˦]}}, etc. There are 20 such possibilities. However, in Chao's original proposal, which was adopted by the IPA in 1989, he stipulated that the half-high and half-low letters {{angbr IPA|˦ ˨}} may be combined with each other, but not with the other three tone letters, so as not to create spuriously precise distinctions. With this restriction, there are 8 possibilities.<ref name=Chao>{{Cite journal |last=Chao |first=Yuen-Ren |year=1930 |title={{IPA|ə sistim əv}} "{{IPA|toun}}-{{IPA|letəz}}" |trans-title=A system of "tone-letters" |journal=Le Maître Phonétique |volume=30 |pages=24–27 |jstor=44704341}}</ref>

The old staveless tone letters tend to be more restricted than the staved letters, though not as restricted as the diacritics. Technically they support as many distinctions as the staved letters,{{Notetag|See for example {{Cite journal |author=Pe Maung Tin |author-link=Pe Maung Tin |year=1924 |title={{IPA|bɜˑmiːz}} |journal=Le Maître Phonétique |volume=2 (39) |number=5 |pages=4–5 |jstor=44704085}} where five pitch levels are distinguished.}} but in the decades prior to the Kiel Convention only three pitch levels were provided for level tones, and only two for contour tones. Unicode supports default or high-pitch {{angbr IPA|ˉ ˊ ˋ ˆ ˇ ˜ ˙}} and low-pitch {{angbr IPA|ˍ ˏ ˎ ꞈ ˬ ˷}}. Only a single mid-pitch tone is supported: {{angbr IPA|˴}}. The IPA had also used dots for [[neutral tone]]s<!-- Daniel Jones, ðə trᴂnskrɪpʃən əv piːkɪŋiːz. Le Maître Phonétique 6 (43), no. 21 (janvier-mars 1928) -->, but the corresponding dotted Chao tone letters were not adopted at the Kiel Convention.

Although tone diacritics and tone letters are presented as equivalent on the chart, "this was done only to simplify the layout of the chart. The two sets of symbols are not comparable in this way."<ref>{{harvnb|International Phonetic Association|1999|p=14}}</ref> Using diacritics, a high tone is {{angbr IPA|é}} and a low tone is {{angbr IPA|è}}; in tone letters, these are {{angbr IPA|e˥}} and {{angbr IPA|e˩}}. One can double the diacritics for extra-high {{angbr IPA|e̋}} and extra-low {{angbr IPA|ȅ}}; there is no parallel to this using tone letters. Instead, tone letters have mid-high {{angbr IPA|e˦}} and mid-low {{angbr IPA|e˨}}; again, there is no equivalent among the diacritics. Thus in a three-register tone system, {{angbr IPA|é ē è}} are equivalent to {{angbr IPA|e˥ e˧ e˩}}, while in a four-register system, {{angbr IPA|e̋ é è ȅ}} may be equivalent to {{angbr IPA|e˥ e˦ e˨ e˩}}.<ref name=report75-76 />

The correspondence breaks down even further once they start combining. For more complex tones, one may combine three or four tone diacritics in any permutation,<ref name=report75-76>{{harvnb|Roach|1989|pp=75–76}}</ref> though in practice only generic peaking (rising-falling) {{IPA|e᷈}} and dipping (falling-rising) {{IPA|e᷉}} combinations are used. Chao tone letters are required for finer detail ({{IPA|e˧˥˧, e˩˨˩, e˦˩˧, e˨˩˦}}, etc.). Although only 10 peaking and dipping tones were proposed in Chao's original, limited set of tone letters, phoneticians often make finer distinctions, and indeed an example is found on the IPA Chart.{{NoteTag|The example has changed over the years. In the chart included in the 1999 IPA ''Handbook'', it was {{IPA|[˦˥˦]}}, and since the 2018 revision of the chart it has been {{IPA|[˧˦˨]}}.}} The system allows the transcription of 112<!--125 less 5 triple letters and 8 other combos that form a straight line (e.g. 2-3-4).--> peaking and dipping pitch contours, including tones that are level for part of their length.

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Original (restricted) set of Chao tone letters{{NoteTag|Chao did not include tone shapes such as {{IPA|[˨˦˦], [˧˩˩]}}, which rise or fall and then level off (or vice versa). Such tone shapes are, however, frequently encountered in the modern literature.}}
! Register
! Level<br />{{NoteTag|In Chao's Sinological convention, a single tone letter {{angbr IPA|˥}} is used for a high tone on a [[checked syllable]], and a double tone letter {{angbr IPA|˥˥}} for a high tone on an open syllable. Such redundant doubling is not used in the ''Handbook'', where the tones of Cantonese {{IPA|[si˥]}} 'silk' and {{IPA|[sɪk˥]}} 'color' are transcribed the same way. If the author wishes to indicate a difference in phonetic or phonemic length, the IPA accomplishes that with the length marks {{angbr IPA|◌̆ ◌ˑ ◌ː}} rather than through the tone letters.}}
! Rising
! Falling
! Peaking
! Dipping
|-
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˩}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˩˩}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˩˧}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˧˩}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˩˧˩}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˧˩˧}}
|-
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˨}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˨˨}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˨˦}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˦˨}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˨˦˨}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˦˨˦}}
|-
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˧}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˧˧}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˧˥}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˥˧}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˧˥˧}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˥˧˥}}
|-
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˦}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˦˦}}
|
|
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˧˥˩}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˧˩˥}}
|-
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˥}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˥˥}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˩˥}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˥˩}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˩˥˧}}
| style="text-align:center; font-size:larger;" | {{IPA|e˥˩˧}}
|}

More complex contours are possible. Chao gave an example of {{IPA|[꜔꜒꜖꜔]}} (mid-high-low-mid) from English prosody.<ref name=Chao />

Chao tone letters generally appear after each syllable, for a language with syllable tone{{snd}}{{angbr IPA|a˧vɔ˥˩}}{{snd}}or after the phonological word, for a language with [[word tone]] ({{angbr IPA|avɔ˧˥˩}}). The IPA gives the option of placing the tone letters before the word or syllable{{snd}}{{angbr IPA|˧a˥˩vɔ}}, {{angbr IPA|˧˥˩avɔ}}{{snd}}but this is rare for lexical tone. Reversed tone letters may be used to clarify that they apply to the following rather than to the preceding syllable{{snd}}{{angbr IPA|꜔a꜒꜖vɔ}}, {{angbr IPA|꜔꜒꜖avɔ}}. The staveless letters are not directly supported by Unicode, but some fonts allow the stave in Chao tone letters to be suppressed.