China and Siberia

Abstract

This chapter provides a summary of the prosodic systems of varieties of Chinese spoken in mainland China and Taiwan as well as languages in Siberia, in particular Ket. What the Chinese languages and Ket share is their tonal nature. This chapter highlights three unique aspects of the prosody of these languages. First, it surveys the typologically complex patterns of tonal alternation known as ‘tone sandhi’ and provides a summary of current experimental findings on the productivity of these patterns. Second, it discusses the patterns of lexical and phrasal stress and their interaction with tone, with a focus on the similar metrical principles that underlie tone languages and other languages. Third, it surveys the different types of interaction between lexical tone and the intonational use of pitch, in particular focus and interrogativity. These issues are first discussed in the context of Chinese languages, then echoed in a brief summary of Ket prosody.

Authors 3

1. Jie Zhang

   University of Kansas

   Affiliation as printed

   Linguistics, The University of Kansas

2. San Duanmu

   University of Michigan

   Affiliation as printed

   Dept of Linguistics, University of Michigan

3. Yiya Chen Aachen Linguistics

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Linguistics, Leiden University Center for Linguistics