The Formation And Utilization Of The Neutral Tone

This article studies the Neutral Tone with the theories of Non-Linear Phonology, probes the development progress and mechanism of the Neutral Tone, and tries to resolve some problems of the Neutral Tone in the work of popularizing Mandarin.This article probes four reasons of emergence of the Neutral Tone, like phonetics, semantic meaning, analogy and languages of other nationalities. This article also expounds the source and course of the Neutral Tone words.This article expounds the macro development of Neutral Tone at the two levels of segments and tones, and reconstructs the diachronic sequence of the Neutral Tone with synchronic dialects. Thus Beijing Dialect (the base of Mandarin) is put into a dynamic system.This article also discusses the utilization of the Neutral Tone in Mandarin, considers the Neutral Tone mainly acts in oral speaking, concludes rules of emergence of the Neutral Tone, and studies some problems of special phonetics of the Neutral Tone.