Matthew Chen's study, first published in 2000, offers a most comprehensive analysis of the rich and complex patterns of tone used in Chinese languages. Chinese has a wide repertoire of tones which undergo often surprising changes when they are connected in speech flow. The term tone sandhi refers to this tonal alternation. Chen examines tone sandhi phenomena in detail across a variety of Chinese dialects. He explores a range of important theoretical issues such as the nature of tonal representation, the relation of tone to accent, the prosodic domain of sandhi rules, and the interface between syntax and phonology. His book is the culmination of a ten-year research project and offers a wealth of empirical data not previously accessible to linguists. Extensive references and a bibliography on tone sandhi complete this invaluable resource which will be welcomed as a standard reference on Chinese tone.
This book investigates the diachronic change of the tone sandhi of Southern Min Chinese, which is known for its synchronic arbitrariness and opacity. It argues that in final-prominent tone sandhi, the change of final tones and the change of non-final tones can be highly independent and essentially different from each other. Accordingly, it proposes a new position-based diachronic approach to study the separate evolution of tones occurring at different positions. This book is the first study to rigorously and systematically explore the diachrony of Southern Min tone sandhi.
This book conducts a thorough investigation of the variation in tone sandhi patterns of Shanghai and Wuxi Wu using quantitative rating experiments. Although Shanghai Wu has been well documented, to date there has never been any quantitative study that systematically investigates the factors that influence variability – a research gap this book fills. Further, Wuxi Wu is investigated as an additional case that demonstrates the unique phonological nature of tone sandhi, and how it changes how speakers learn and internalize the variable tone sandhi pattern. The findings presented here will shed new light on important issues of wordhood, the interface of morphosyntax and phonology, and the formal model of variability in phonology.
Explores the concept of tone, its physical properties and intricate patterning in phonology, to unravel key 'mysteries' that have been subject to great debate in the field.
The Handbook of Chinese Linguistics is the first comprehensive introduction to Chinese linguistics from the perspective of modern theoretical and formal linguistics. Containing twenty-five chapters, the book offers a balanced, accessible and thoughtfully organized introduction to some of the most important results of research into Chinese linguistics carried out by theoretical linguists during the last thirty years. Presenting critical overviews of a wide range of major topics, it is the first to meet the great demand for an overview volume on core areas of Chinese linguistics. Authoritative contributions describe and assess the major achievements and controversies of research undertaken in each area, and provide bibliographies for further reading. The contributors refer both to their own work in relevant fields, and objectively present a range of competitor theories and analyses, resulting in a volume that is fully comprehensive in its coverage of theoretical research into Chinese linguistics in recent years. This unique Handbook is suitable both as a primary reader for structured, taught courses on Chinese linguistics at university level, and for individual study by graduates and other professional linguists.
Tone: A Linguistic Survey is a nine-chapter text that considers the phonetics and phonology of tone from both a synchronic and a diachronic point of view. The first chapters deal with the physiological and perceptual correlations of tone. These chapters also describe the interactions of tonal and nontonal features. The succeeding chapters provide the phonetic basis for phonological tonal phenomena. These topics are followed by discussions of the physical and physiological aspects of tone, the number of possible contrastive tones in a language, and a suprasegmental representation of tones based on linguistic evidence. This text also summarizes the kinds of tone rules found in languages and the important syntactic function played by tone in a number of the world's languages, particularly those in Africa. The final chapters look into the general and specific principles that constrain historical tone change. This book will prove useful to students with phonology course.
Learning Chinese can be frustrating and difficult, partly because it's very different from European languages. Following a teacher, textbook or language course is not enough. They show you the characters, words and grammar you need to become proficient in Chinese, but they don't teach you how to learn them! Regardless of what program you're in (if any), you need to take responsibility for your own learning. If you don't, you will miss many important things that aren't included in the course you're taking. If you study on your own, you need to be even more aware of what you need to do, what you're doing at the moment and the difference between them. Here are some of the questions I have asked and have since been asked many times by students: How do I learn characters efficiently? How do I get the most out of my course or teacher? Which are the best learning tools and resources? How can I become fluent in Mandarin? How can I improve my pronunciation? How do I learn successfully on my own? How can I motivate myself to study more? How can I fit learning Chinese into a busy schedule? The answers I've found to these questions and many others form the core of this book. It took eight years of learning, researching, teaching and writing to figure these things out. Not everybody has the time to do that! I can't go back in time and help myself learn in a better way, but I can help you! This book is meant for normal students and independent language learners alike. While it covers all major areas of learning, you won't learn Chinese just by reading this book. It's like when someone on TV teaches you how to cook: you won't get to eat the delicious dish just by watching the program; you have to do the cooking yourself. That's true for this book as well. When you apply what you learn, it will boost your learning, making every hour you spend count for more, but you still have to do the learning yourself. This is what a few readers have said about the book: "The book had me nodding at a heap of things I'd learnt the hard way, wishing I knew them when I started, as well as highlighting areas that I'm currently missing in my study." - Geoff van der Meer, VP engineering "This publication is like a bible for anyone serious about Chinese proficiency. It's easy for anyone to read and written with scientific precision." - Zachary Danz, foreign teacher, children's theatre artist About me I started learning Chinese when I was 23 (that's more than eight years ago now) and have since studied in many different situations, including serious immersion programs abroad, high-intensity programs in Sweden, online courses, as well as on the side while working or studying other things. I have also successfully used my Chinese in a graduate program for teaching Chinese as a second language, taught entirely in Chinese mostly for native speakers (the Graduate Institute for Teaching Chinese as a Second Language at National Taiwan Normal University). All these parts have contributed to my website, Hacking Chinese, where I write regularly about how to learn Mandarin.
This book explores the nature of tones in Zhangzhou, an under-described Southern Min variety, based on quantitative analyses of data from 21 native speakers. It will interest students and linguists studying tone in languages of China and elsewhere in the world, in particular as an exemplar in the use of statistical methods to test and establish phonological categories in language. The study finds that realisations of Zhangzhou tones are multidimensional and that Zhangzhou has eight tones, overturning previous studies of seven tones based on the preservation of Middle Chinese tonal categories. The results presented here also suggest that the nature of Zhangzhou tones is morphological. The relationship between sandhi and citation tones is shown to be morphophonemic, while the relationship between phrase-final and citation tones is allophonic.
No book has ever been published on tonal change and neutralization, two closely related topics in tonal phonology. This will be the first book to be devoted to both. The articles collected in this volume analyze a wide range of data concerning tonal change and neutralization, including post-lexical neutralization which represents a new topic in prosodic research. The volume as a whole covers a wide range of tone and pitch-accent languages in Asia, Africa and Europe, with a main focus on Asian languages/dialects many of which are endangered now. In addition to presenting novel data and analyses about individual languages, it provides typological perspectives on tonal change and neutralization. This volume will serve as an indispensable source of data and analyses for a wide range of linguists interested in phonetics, phonology, prosody, historical linguistics, language typology, endangered languages, Japanese linguistics, and Chinese linguistics.
