Changed tone

[2] There are a limited set of semantic domains where changed tone occurs, generally associated with small things, familiarity, food and disease.

[5] The use of a high rising tone in marking changed tone in many Yue varieties of Chinese implies one possible origin in diminutive morphemes, much in the same way that erhua functions in Standard Mandarin and in the Beijing dialect.

In Cantonese, several diminutive morphemes have been proposed as the original one, among them 兒 /jiː˥/ "son" (in its high level tone form) and 子 /t͡siː˧˥/ "child".

[1] A separate tone change that operates on verbs has also been attested, marking the perfective aspect.

[7] This tone morpheme is even said to predominate over the overt perfective markers in certain areas such as Zhaoqing, Xinhui, Foshan and Shunde, giving rise to a form of tonal ablaut, although this is associated with the speech of the older generation.