Tone Sandhi

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.