The Uni- and Multi-Phonational Tone Systems of the Five Counties on the Jianghan Plain

The five counties lie between Mandarin and non-Mandarin Chinese, and their dialects show intensive evolutionary features. This chapter introduces the uniqueness of the dialects of the five counties in the first section. The co-occurrence of the varieties different in their present state of the MC groups and phonation types makes the dialects special on the whole map of Chinese languages. In the second section, the uni- and multi-phonational tone systems of the five counties are introduced. Being produced by one to three phonation types, the tone systems are uni-, di-, and tri-phonational, ranging from four to ten tones. Representatives of different tone systems are illustrated with tone figures. Two common uni-phonational four-tone systems are applied in the five counties: they share two tones, and the other two involve a tonal flip-flop. The locals regard the ‘high-Yinping rising-Qusheng’ one as Urban Accent and the ‘high-Qusheng rising-Yinping’ one as Rural Accent.