The first tone (leading) is usually spoken with a very strongly marked accent as in sing sang (teacher), ki chi (a foundation).
The second tone (leading) has the peculiar inflection noticed above in the description of tones. It sometimes imparts to the voice a slightly sarcastic accent, especially when the following word is in the 3d or 7th tone, as in siong sëü (reward), ka mó (to feign).
The third and seventh tones (leading) cannot be distinguished from the first (leading). They have the same strongly marked accent. This is easily tested in colloquial terms which have no generally accepted character to represent the leading word. Native teachers, in borrowing a character for it, often disagree. One, perhaps, will use a first tone, another a third tone, and another a seventh tone, character.
The fourth tone (leading), when ending in h, has the quality of the first tone (leading); when ending in k, that of the second tone (leading). The following are familiar examples:– tiăh, hwa (to pluck flowers), k‘ah, t‘iăng (a parlor), tóh, 'kiăng (a small table), spoken as tó kiăng (a small knife), paik ing (the eight tones), ch‘ek, ngwok (the seventh month), t‘iék, liéng (an iron chain).
The fifth tone (leading) is spoken in a low or depressed tone of the voice without marked emphasis. The inexperienced student in his effort to speak words of this tone in regimen, according to the rules laid down for the tones in their full form, misses the sound entirely, and enunciates it like the first tone in regimen, saying niéng pwang instead of niéng pwang a year and a half), pu sak, instead of pu sak, (a Budhist idol). The distinction is very apparent in the comparative pronunciation of such phrases as ki ‘chi (a foundation), and ki chi (chess-men).
The sixth tone is obsolete, or the same as the second.
The seventh tone (leading) is the same as the third tone (leading), q. v.
The eighth tone (leading) has no marked distinction—as that prevailing in the fourth tone—between words ending in h and k. In the city of Foochow it is enunciated in a depressed tone of voice like the fifth tone (leading), while in the suburbs, and probably in the country, it is often heard with a strongly marked accent like the first tone (leading). This may be regarded as a kind of country brogue. In phrases having the second word in the fifth tone, this peculiar brogue is less evident, which is due to the strong radical stress or emphasis pertaining to that tone. Examples,–pah ma (a white horse),
