Hi there,

can someone please explain, why in 留学生 the 生 is in first tone while in 学生 it is in neutral tone? Is there a pronounciation rule for appended 生s? Is it different for two and three character words?

Best,
Kai

Hi Kai,

What you are observing isn't necessarily a pronunciation rule for appended "生" but rather how 普通话 is trying to deal with the entire concept of whether neutral tones (and thus non-neutral tones) themselves actually carry the ability to differentiate meaning.

There are many clear cut rules on when neutral tones should happen: on suffixes, reduplicated verbs, directional words, particles etc., but other instances are not so clear cut. One of these just happens to be "学生."

This actually depends on where you living in China, or what type of Chinese you are speaking. In the north, especially the older generation in Beijing, uses neutral tones in a variety of ways to differentiate meaning, and example we learned in my Chinese linguistics class is 北京人‘s ”人“ said as a neutral tone is simply a "Beijinger," where as "ren" as a second tone means "Peking Man," or someone who is uncivilized. Taiwan, and other Southern areas of China do not use neutral tones nearly as much to differentiate meaning, and so here you would actually say 学生’s "生" as a first tone.

In the case of ”学生," I believe that the case for having it as a neutral tone stems from "小学生." If you pronounce 小学生's “生" as a first tone you are saying primary school student, where as 小学生's "生" as a neutral tone indicates a little student, or a student younger in age. However, when ”学生“ is used to create other nouns, such as: 留学生， 大学生，小学生，学生会 etc. the tone remains. The same goes for 朋友 (also said third tone in Taiwan). This isn't a case of two and three character words being different, since 黄瓜's "瓜“ is neutral, but 西瓜's "瓜" is a first tone.

Wish I could be more help, but it seems like people are still studying this. Perhaps in 20 or 30 years this wont even be a question any more, but only time will tell.

Thanks a lot!

Haha great information. I just ignore this random tone changes for now.