KaiKou 開 口 and HeKou 合 口 are generally distinguished by the presence of the medial [u] in he kou syllables. Together with the four Deng they form an eight way contrast in the rhymes represented in rhymetables. They are usually abbreviated as follows
| Deng + Open and Close | 開 口 | 合 口 |
| 一 等 | 開 一 | 合 一 |
| 二 等 | 開 二 | 合 二 |
| 三 等 | 開 三 | 合 三 |
| 四 等 | 開 四 | 合 四 |
Alternatively, kaikou and hekou tables of rhymes are sometimes labelled with qing ( 輕 light ) and chong ( 重 heavy ) respectively.
© Dylan W.H. Sung
This page was created on Thursday 18th January 2001
and recently updated on
Thursday 25th April 2002