Qiyang dialect

Tones

Qiyang dialect is quite unusual in that it is reported to have two "double contour" tones, high and low fall–rise–fall, or perhaps high fall – low fall and low fall – high fall: the entering tones yin qu (陰去) ˦˨˧˨ (4232) and yang qu (陽去) ˨˩˦˨ (2142). However, phonetically the pitch of a syllable depends on the voicing of the initial consonant, so these are phonemically a single tone. Moreover, the final fall of the yin qu tone is "not perceptually relevant", so it may be that 'dipping' (for yin qu) and 'peaking' (for yang qu) are a sufficient categorization.