Hi guys!
I just started your Say it Right series and I really enjoy it. Great approach. My question is: If there are many third tones, let’s say 4 or more in a row, what’s the rule for tone changes? For example:
我可以买你手表吗？
Haven’t found any good explanation/information about it.
Check out 15:35 onward of this lesson. It should help:
The basic rule fo changing 3rd tone if there are 2 or 3 consecutives 3rd tone is the following :
3 + 3 = 2 + 3
3 + 3 + 3 = 2 + 2 +3
If you have a sentence with only 3rd tones you first break the sentence into basic entities (noun, pronoun, verb or adjective+noun) and apply the basic rule to each entity.
For example :
我很想给你买几把好雨伞。
Wǒ hěn xiǎng gěi nǐ mǎi jǐ bǎ hǎo yǔsǎn.
我 / 很想 / 给你 / 买几把 / 好雨伞。
3 / 33 / 33 / 333 / 333
becomes
3 / 23 / 23 / 223 / 223
Wǒ / hén xiǎng /géi nǐ/ mái jí bǎ / háo yúsǎn.
Old Martin’s idea is correct! We need to break the sentence into morphemes or words first, and then do the tone sandhi.
But I, as a native speaker, would like to separate “我很想给你买几把好雨伞” as
“我/很想/给你/买/几把/好/雨伞”, which turns into
我3 / 很想23 / 给你23 / 买3／几把23 / 好3 / 雨伞23 at the word level.
Then the whole sentence tuns into
“我3 很想23 給你22 买3 几把22 好3 雨伞23”.