Falsetto:The phonetic nature of Rising Tone in early times

This paper,with newly acquired tone data from Gaoba Kam and Wenzhou dialect, attempts to interpret the phonetic nature of the impressionistic description in classical documents from the perspective of experimental phonetics.Tone in Chinese developed from non-tonal elements,which include seven phonetic candidates:duration,intensity,initial consonants,vowels,nasal ending,phonation types,and final glottal stop.Shangsheng,or Chinese Rising Tone,in the early stage of tonal development(roughly 400-700 AD)was described as sharp and raised.It is most likely that falsetto,and possibly a final glottal stop, caused such an impressionistic description.