Wiktionary:About Wu/Northern Wu

, also known as Taihu Wu, is the largest branch of the languages, spoken by around half of the Wu speakerbase, in southern, , and northern. Many cities, such as (the cultural capital of the region),  (the economic centre and largest city of China), and  (the  capital), are home to Northern Wu varieties.

Although no official romanization system is endorsed by any government, on Wiktionary, both of these lects are notated in Wugniu, which is the most common standardised system used in online circles nowadays. Wugniu is also available in a wide variety of localities, and correspondences between different lects tend to have the same glyph (eg. Shanghainese and Suzhounese  both being "au"). Slight modifications have been made regarding tone notation, as Wugniu does not officially have a way to notate tone sandhi. The legacy Wiktionary romanization for Shanghainese is accessible in the expanded pronunciation infobox, and its use is now not recommended.

Initials
As most Northern Wu lects share the same set of initials, the following will be a pan-Northern Wu table. Irregularities will be listed in the footnotes. Discrepancies between the legacy Wiktionary system and Wugniu for Shanghainese are shown in bold.

would be the input for in Shanghainese. If the underlying tone category of a syllable is not the same as the sandhi chain's realization, the underlying tone is written to the right of the syllable;  would be the input for  in Shanghainese. This is largely only used in Suzhounese, though note that in Shanghainese, the negator uses tone 6's sandhi chain.

Wugniu's tone categories span from 1 to 8 for all lects, though not all are used in every lect. These numbers correspond to the four Middle Chinese tones&mdash;level, rising, departing and checked&mdash;and are further split in two based on voicing (voiceless&mdash;dark, voiced&mdash;light) of the initial of the character.

Right-prominent sandhi can be inputted through the use of :   for  in Suzhounese.

forces a null tone onto a syllable, and  forces a mid-tone onto a syllable. These are both useful in usage examples and idioms, where tone nullification often occurs based on syntax.

Shanghainese
There are five tone categories (or "tones") in Middle and New (中派與新派) Shanghainese, a reduction from the six to eight in Old (老派) Shanghainese. The tone category a character belongs to can essentially be inferred from its Middle Chinese pronunciation, or pronunciations from other Chinese varieties. Middle Chinese had four tones&mdash;level, rising, departing and checked. In the development to Shanghainese, each of the four Middle Chinese tones split in two, conditioned by the voicing (voiceless&mdash;dark, voiced&mdash;light) of the initial of the character. Three of the resultant eight tone categories then merged with other categories, producing five tone categories in total today.

Several of these tone categories are non-phonemic; that is, they are predictable from the voicing of the initial consonant and from whether the syllable is checked (ending in a glottal stop). Only tones 1 and 5 are contrastive: they both occur in syllables with voiceless initials and no final glottal stop.


 * {| class="wikitable" style="width:80%; text-align:center"

! Wugniu tone number!!Legacy tone number!!Tone name (tone category)!!Voicing!!Tone value!!Example characters!!Ancestral MC tones !1!!1!!dark level !5!!2!!dark departing !6!!3!!light departing !7!!4!!dark checked !8!!5!!light checked
 * voiceless|| 53||||dark level
 * voiceless|| 34||||dark rising, dark departing
 * voiced|| 23||||light level, light rising, light departing
 * voiceless|| 55 ||||dark checked
 * voiced|| 12 ||||light checked
 * }

Left-prominent tone sandhi (word sandhi)
Each of these five categories then has a tone sandhi pattern, depending on the number of syllables in the word. In Shanghainese, left-prominent sandhi patterns are always analysed to be entirely dependent on (ie. predictable from) the tone of the first syllable (except ), and as such, subsequent syllables' tones are unmarked.


 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; width:80%"

!Tonal category!!Monosyllabics!!Disyllabics!!Trisyllabics!!Tetrasyllabics!!Pentasyllabics !1. Dark level (1) !2. Dark departing (5) !3. Light departing (6) !4. Dark checked (7) !5. Light checked (8) 22 ＋55＋33＋21|| 22 ＋55＋33＋33＋21
 * +Left-prominent word tone sandhi patterns
 * 53||55＋21||55＋33＋21||55＋33＋33＋21||55＋33＋33＋33＋21
 * 34||33＋44||33＋55＋21||33＋55＋33＋21||33＋55＋33＋33＋21
 * 23||22＋44||22＋55＋21||22＋55＋33＋21||22＋55＋33＋33＋21
 * 55 || 33 ＋44|| 33 ＋55＋21|| 33 ＋55＋33＋21|| 33 ＋55＋33＋33＋21
 * 12 || 11 ＋23|| 11 ＋22＋23|| 11 ＋22＋22＋23
 * }

Right-prominent tone sandhi (phrase sandhi)
When words combine form a phrase, the following right-prominent sandhi rules apply. In short, when the word A in appears non-finally in a phrase, its last syllable (A-x) changes to a flat (level) tone. The tone sandhi value that syllable A-x changes to is conditioned by three factors: (1) the tonal category of syllable A-x, (2) the number of syllables in word A, and if the number of syllables in A is 1 – (3) whether word A is "tightly associated" with the word preceding word A. The exact realization of the phenomenon varies from person to person, and as such, right-prominent sandhi is only visible in the IPA realization of the input.


 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; width:100%"

!rowspan=2|Word undergoing sandhi (i.e. word A) !colspan=5|Tonal category of last syllable of word undergoing sandhi (i.e. syllable A-x) !rowspan=2|Example !Tone 1!!Tone 5!!Tone 6!!Tone 7!!Tone 8 !Monosyllabic word unbound to any word preceding it !Monosyllabic word tightly bound to a monosyllabic word preceding it !Multisyllabic word !Monosyllabic word tightly bound to a multisyllabic word preceding it
 * rowspan=2 colspan=2|44||rowspan=2|33||rowspan=2| 44 ||rowspan=2| 22
 * rowspan=2 colspan=3|33||rowspan=2 colspan=2| 33
 * }
 * }

Conversion from MiniDict and Wugniu tone notation

 * 平 (level), 上 (rising), 去 (departing), and 入 (checked) should be used for reference, not the numbers.

Suzhounese
Tone sandhi in Suzhounese is usually analysed as a system in which every underlying tone contributes to the chain's contour. However, some generalizations can be made. On Wiktionary, the system as described in A Study on Suzhounese Phonetics (蘇州方言語音研究) is used.

'''Disclaimer: as Suzhounese has many irregular sandhi chains, and this system drastically simplifies sandhi, many words are irregular. Please transcribe realised tones using the sandhi chain with the closest pitch contour.'''

It is widely agreed upon that Suzhounese has seven tones.


 * {| class="wikitable" style="width:80%; text-align:center"

! Wugniu tone number!!Tone name (tone category)!!Voicing!!Tone value!!Example characters!!Ancestral MC tones !1!!dark level !2!!light level !3!!rising !5!!dark departing !6!!light departing !7!!dark checked !8!!light checked
 * voiceless|| 44||||dark level
 * voiceless|| 223||||light level
 * voiceless|| 51||||dark rising
 * voiceless|| 523||||dark departing
 * voiced|| 231||||light rising, light departing
 * voiceless|| 43 ||||dark checked
 * voiced|| 23 ||||light checked
 * }

Left-prominent tone sandhi (word sandhi)
The left-prominent sandhi system used on Wiktionary works quite similarly to Shanghainese. For tones 1-6, only the first syllable is taken into account, whereas in tones 7 and 8, the first two syllables determine the chain. The 0's listed below are not displayed in the IPA as it is considered non-standard.


 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; width:80%"

! Tone category!!Monosyllabics!!Disyllabics!!Trisyllabics!!Tetrasyllabics ! Dark level (1) ! Light level (2) ! Rising (3) ! Dark departing (5) ! Light departing (6)
 * + Left-prominent word tone sandhi patterns in unchecked syllables
 * 44 || 44 0 || 44 44 0 || 44 44 44 0
 * 223 || 22 33 || 22 33 0 || 22 33 44 0
 * 51 || 55 11 || 55 11 0 || 55 11 11 0
 * 523 || 52 33 || 52 33 0 || 52 33 44 0
 * 231 || 23 11 || 23 11 0 || 23 11 11 0
 * }


 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; width:80%"

! colspan=2|Tone category!!rowspan=2|Disyllabics!!rowspan=2|Trisyllabics!!rowspan=2|Tetrasyllabics ! 1st syl !! 2nd syl ! rowspan=4|Dark checked (7) !! Level (1, 2) ! Rising (3) ! Departing (5, 6) ! Checked (7, 8) ! rowspan=4|Light checked (8) !! Level (1, 2) ! Rising (3) ! Departing (5, 6) ! Checked (7, 8)
 * + Left-prominent word tone sandhi patterns in checked syllables
 * 44 23 || 44 23 0 || 44 44 23 44 0
 * 55 51 || 55 51 0 || 55 51 11 0
 * 55 523 || 55 52 33 || 55 52 22 33
 * 44 44 || 44  44 0 || 44  44  44 22
 * 22 33 || 22 33 0 || 22 33 44 0
 * 22 51 || 22 51 0 || 22 51 11 0
 * 22 523 || 22 52 33 || 22 52 22 33
 * 33 44 || 33  44 0 || 33  44 22 0
 * }

Right-prominent tone sandhi (phrase sandhi)
Suzhounese only has Shanghai-style right-prominent sandhi in monosyllabic dark departing terms. The dark departing syllabe mutates from 523 to 51: is pronounced as.

Use in example sentences
In example sentences, all Northern Wu lects with Wugniu romanization are permitted. Other Wu lects are to be further investigated as to the potential for their inclusion. The Northern Wu localities with Wugniu notation are:


 * Shanghai
 * Urban Shanghai, Baoshan, Jiading, Putuo, Qingpu, Songjiang, Jinshan, Fengxian, Chuansha, Chongming
 * Jiangsu
 * Eastern Nantong (通東)
 * Urban Suzhou, Kunshan, Wujiang, Changshu
 * Urban Wuxi, Yixing
 * Urban Changzhou
 * Jingjiang (Old Coast 老岸話)
 * Zhejiang
 * Urban Jiaxing, Jiashan, Haiyan, Haining, Tongxiang
 * Urban Huzhou, Changxing, Anji, Deqing
 * Urban Hangzhou, Yuhang, Linping, Fuyang, Tonglu, Xiaoshan
 * Urban Shaoxing, Keqiao, Shangyu, Shengzhou, Xinchang
 * Urban Ningbo, Cixi, Yuyao, Zhenhai, Beilun, Yinzhou, Fenghua, Xiangshan
 * Urban Zhoushan, Daishan

Examples














Resources

 * For checking the pronunciation of words, use The Comprehensive Dictionary of Shanghainese (《上海话大词典》), which uses IPA notations throughout the book. Wugniu also has a Shanghainese dictionary listed under 松江 Songjiang. However, note that Wugniu's dictionary spills into lect areas outside of Puxi
 * For checking the pronunciation of characters, use Wugniu or Wu Chinese MiniDict
 * Note that MiniDict uses a different romanisation system than the one implemented here. Their romanisation scheme is as listed on their website