The “fifth tone” in Mandarin: a case study of Macau

Abstract Mandarin has four lexical tones, but an additional tone, the “fifth tone” (T5), has been proposed in Singapore Mandarin and Malaysia Mandarin. T5 is characterized by a short-falling pitch with an optional glottal stop. Given the linguistic proximity of Macau to Singapore and Malaysia, T5 is very likely to be present in Macau Mandarin. Accordingly, this study investigated T5 in Macau Mandarin and approached the issue of tone categorization of T5. Twenty-four fluent speakers of Mandarin in Macau were recruited and stratified by age. Results show that aside from the high-falling contour, T5 is realized as a high-level contour by speakers of various ages. In spite of its tone contour, T5 lacks duration contrast between its corresponding lexical tones in Macau Mandarin, and the glottal stop also shows redundancy. The study also supports that T5 is a variant instead of a contrastive tone. The younger group exhibited a lower frequency of T5 occurrences compared with the elder group. This is probably due to more intensive contact with Mandarin by the younger generation. By contributing a nuanced understanding of T5, this research provides an opening into the tonal variations in Macau Mandarin and suggests avenues for further, more substantial research.