From the physiology and acoustics to their patterning across human languages, tone is one of the fundamental constructs in human languages that is also among the hardest to apprehend. Drawing upon a large number of languages around the world, this volume explores the concept of tone starting from its physical properties of articulation and acoustics to its manifestation in phonology. Designed as a comprehensive study accessible to the novice and useful for the expert, each chapter covers a...

The complexity of tone can only be appreciated through phonological patterning that unveils structures beyond differences in pitch heights and contour profiles. Following an introduction on tone's ability to express lexical and grammatical contrasts, Section 2 explains that phonetically, fundamental frequency profiles make for the best descriptors. From these descriptions, Section 3 explains how, through postulations of subatomic entities that comprise tones, a language's tone inventory ca...

This book examines how in navigating Hong Kong’s colonial history alongside its ever-present Chinese identity, the city has come to manifest a conflicting socio-cultural plurality. Drawing together scholars, critics, commentators, and creators on the vanguard of the emerging field of Hong Kong Studies, the essay volume presents a gyroscopic perspective that discerns what is made in from what is made into Hong Kong while weaving a patchwork of the territory’s contested local imaginary. This...