Tonal Changes in Hong Kong Cantonese

Abstract

This paper discusses changes in Hong Kong Cantonese tones. Cantonese is a tonal language and changes in its tones affect the semantics of the lexicon. There are nine tones in Cantonese, of which six are contrastive and there are three allotones of three level tones. Two variants of the High tone (High Level and High Fall) are found in the speech of Guangzhou speakers whereas the Hong Kong speakers only use the High Level form. In this paper, the High Rise and the Low Rise tone contours are found to be 25 and 23 respectively instead of 35 and 13 as thought previously. This change in Hong Kong Cantonese is contrasted with the Cantonese of Guangzhou and the paper posits that the differences are ascribable to the separation of Hong Kong and Guangzhou during much of the past 50 years.