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First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
List of contents
Acknowledgments, 1 Background, 2 The Phonetics of Contour Tones, 3 Empirical Predictions of Different Approaches, 4 The Role of Contrast-Specific Phonetics in Contour Tone Distribution: A Survey, 5 The Role of Language-Specific Phonetics in Contour Tone Distribution: Instrumental Studies, 6 Against Structure-Only Alternatives, 7 A Phonetically-Driven Optimality-Theoretic Approach, 8 Case Studies, 9 Conclusion, Appendix: Data Sources for Languages in the Survey, References, Index
About the author
Jie Zhang
Summary
First Published in 2002. Part of the Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics series, this is an in-depth investigation of the effects of duration and sonority on contour tone distribution. The term “tone language” usually refers to languages in which the pitch of a syllable serves lexical or grammatical functions. In some tone languages, the contrastive functions of pitch are sometimes played by pitch changes within a syllable. Pitch changes of this kind are called contour tones. The distribution of contour tones in a language, are when under what phonological contexts contour tones are more readily realized.
