Tonal Processes Defined as Tone Sandhi

doi:10.1017/9781108329019.017

14 - Tonal Processes Defined as Tone Sandhi

from Part Three - Phonetic-phonological Issues in Chinese

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2022

Edited by

I-Hsuan Chen and

Chu-Ren Huang: Affiliation:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Yen-Hwei Lin: Affiliation:
Michigan State University
I-Hsuan Chen: Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Yu-Yin Hsu: Affiliation:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

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Summary

This chapter reviews the descriptive patterns of tone sandhi in Chinese dialects along with the experimental investigations of what generalizations native speakers make regarding these patterns, how they process them in production and perception, and how children acquire these patterns. Theoretical issues that tone sandhi sheds light on, including the role of typology in synchronic theories, feature representation, productivity and learnability, and the interface between phonology and other domains such as phonetics, processing, and morphosyntax, are also discussed briefly. The chapter focuses on the interdisciplinary nature of tone sandhi research and calls on researchers to take an open and synergistic approach among different methods to gain an comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon.

Keywords

tone tone sandhi tonal representation productivity tone acquisition

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Chinese Linguistics , pp. 291 - 312

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108329019.017 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

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