tonal

«tonal» in Mova's school dictionary: to do with tone: the sound, pitch or quality of something — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

part of speech

adjective (tonal)

meaning for a pupil

1) Tonal means to do with tone: the sound, pitch or quality of something. tree →

2) A tonal language uses the rise and fall of the voice to change the meaning of a word, like Mandarin Chinese. tree →

3) In art, tonal means to do with light and dark shades of a colour. tree →

sense in the lessons

In music lessons it is about pitch and keys; in art lessons about shading from light to dark; in languages it explains why in Mandarin "ma" can mean mother or horse depending on the tone. Phrases: tonal language, tonal range, tonal shading.

examples

• Mandarin is a tonal language with four main tones. tree →
• In art we did tonal shading with a pencil, from dark to light. tree →
• The piano has a warm tonal quality. tree →
• English is not a tonal language, though our voice rises in questions. tree →
• Make a tonal scale with five boxes. tree →
• The singer's tonal range is wide. tree →

note

Adjective only; noun: tone, tonality. Trap: tonal (about tone) is not the same as total (all added together).

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «tonal» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.