Tone Sandhi: Patterns Across Chinese Dialects (review)

This book is the culmination of a ten-year study of tone sandhi, that is, allophonic and phonemic alternations of tones in speech flow, in various Chinese dialects. Chen’s extensive analysis of, among others, the Mandarin dialects of Beijing, Tianjin, Boshan, the Wu dialects of Shanghai, Danyang, Nantong, Zhenhai, Wenzhou, the Hakka dialect of Changting, and the Min dialect of Xiamen represents a plethora of new kinds of facts not previously described or accounted for in reference literature.

Thematically, the book can be divided into two parts. The first part, Chs. 1–6, examines various types of tone sandhi processes and their interaction with each other. In addition, Ch. 6 investigates the problem of the transition from a tonal to an accentual system. The second part, Chs. 7–11, deals with the question of sandhi domains, that is, the scope within which tone sandhi operates.

The first chapter, ‘Setting the stage’ (1–52), begins with a brief description of the languages and dialects of China. It proceeds with an overview of Middle Chinese tonal categories and processes of tone splits and mergers and outlines tone patterns in present day dialects. The phenomenon of tone sandhi is exemplified by the four tone sandhi rules of Beijing Mandarin. Subsequently, tone sandhi is considered in the context of tonal modifications in connected speech flow, including intonational effects and morphologically conditioned tone changes. The chapter also addresses the problem of the synchronic relevance of diachrony to demonstrate that many atypical phenomena can be understood only when viewed in a diachronic perspective. The chapter concludes with a brief clarification of the terms ‘citation tone’, ‘base tone’, and ‘sandhi tone’.

In Ch. 2, ‘Tonal representations and tonal processes’ (53–97), C focuses on tone representation, tonal geometry, and the typology of spread and shift sandhi rules. The same chapter considers the problems of dissimilation and substitution, neutralization, and differentiation. In Ch. 3, ‘Directionality and interacting sandhi processes I’ (98–149), the reader is introduced to the problem of how basic sandhi processes interact and combine to produce existing forms. C shows that the formation of actual language forms is determined by a number of constraints, some of which are likely to be rooted in general principles of language processing. In his analysis C appeals to the notions of structural affinity, temporal sequence, and derivational economy. As an example of a set of constraints on derivation and an illustration of the approach adopted in the study, the facts of Tianjin are examined in detail. The chapter ends with an analysis of existing alternatives to the derivational account. Ch. 4, ‘Directionality and interacting sandhi processes II’ (150–73), continues the analysis undertaken in Ch. 3 on the basis of the dialects of Changting, Huojia, Xuzhou, and Boshan. C demonstrates that what initially appears to be a complex set of facts across these dialects is reducible to a handful of principles underlying the interaction of sandhi processes. The complex tonal alternations of New Chongming are analyzed in Ch. 5, ‘From base tones to sandhi forms: A constraint-based analysis’ (174–218), while Ch. 6, ‘From tone to accent’ (219–84), investigates the tone-to-accent evolution in the dialects of Shanghai and New Chongming.

Ch. 7, ‘Stress-foot as sandhi domain I’ (285–319), considers the metrical foot, ‘which entails the notion of stress, the linguistically significant prominence around which the metrical unit is organized’ (286), as the domain of tone sandhi. The chapter begins with a survey of the phonological status of stress in Chinese, proceeds with an outline of stress-related tonal phenomena in Chinese dialects, and ends with an analysis of the interplay of the stress foot and the sandhi phenomena in Shanghai. Ch. 8, ‘Stress-foot as sandhi domain II’ (320–63), extends the metrical approach from Shanghai to more complex sandhi patterns of the Wu dialects of Wuxi, Danyang, and Nantong. Ch. 9, ‘Minimal rhythmic unit as obligatory sandhi domain’ (364–430), examines the prosodic unit...