Tone Sandhi: Patterns across Chinese Dialects

by Matthew Y. Chen

Overview

Matthew Chen's landmark study offers the most comprehensive analysis to date of the rich and complex patterns of tone used in Chinese languages. Chinese has a wide repertoire of tones that undergo often surprising changes when they are connected in speech flow. This tonal alternation is known as tone sandhi. Chen examines tone sandhi phenomena across a variety of Chinese dialects. His book is the culmination of a ten-year research project and explores a range of important theoretical issues against a wealth of empirical data not previously accessible to linguists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521033404
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	02/01/2007
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Linguistics , #92
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	576
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 8.98(h) x 1.42(d)
Lexile:	1440L (what's this?)

Table of Contents

Preface; Notational conventions; 1. Setting the stage; 2. Tonal representation and tonal processes; 3. Directionality and interacting sandhi processes I; 4. Directionality and interacting sandhi processes II; 5. From base tones to sandhi forms: a constraint-based analysis; 6. From tone to accent; 7. Stress-foot as sandhi domain I; 8. Stress-foot as sandhi domain II; 9. Minimal rhythmic unit as obligatory sandhi domain; 10. Phonological phrase as a sandhi domain; 11. From tone to intonation; Concluding remarks; Bibliographical appendix: tone sandhi across Chinese dialects; References; Subject index; Author index.

Editorial Reviews

"Well-structured, comprehensive and reader-friendly, the book is a genuine encyclopedia of Chinese tone sandhi..." Language

"A valuable book that will be of great interest to all phonologists, as well as students of Chinese linguistics." General Linguistics

From the Publisher