floating tone English

Meaning floating tone meaning

What does floating tone mean?

floating tone noun

— (phonology) A morpheme or element of a morpheme that contains no consonants or vowels, but only tone. It cannot be pronounced by itself, but affects the tones of neighbouring morphemes.

— (phonology) A phonemic tone which is not associated to a syllable and is therefore not pronounced, but may affect the articulation of neighboring tones, such as by causing downstep.