This paper reports on a case study of a Cantonese-speaking child age 2 and considers the implication of tone acquisition for tone studies in general, and Cantonese tonology in particular. (NCR)

Summarizes 10 presentations made at the workshop on a variety of topics including: classification of Chinese dialects; the importance of semantic units in tone sandhi; insights on Chinese character recognition among brain-damaged patients; and a cognitive approach to the study of Chinese grammar. (TR)

The visual exposure method for teaching tonal modulation can be used in the classroom where aural exposure time cannot be increased. The use of musical notation is a workable technique to begin with, using flashcards. Each flashcard has a character and the musical note that is linked with it. (CFM)

Presents a pair of innovations, originally developed and used for teaching Mandarin, that are now being applied to the teaching of Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Thai, involving a double system of representation to encourage easier pronunciation and long-term learning; and a special sequencing for presenting the tones. (36 references) (CB)

A study investigated the validity of three theories in predicting the structure of language tone systems containing level tones. The theories include the following: that (1) phonetic elements are arranged so they are maximally separated in a fixed phonetic space; (2) a system with a larger number of phonetic elements will use a larger phonetic…

This short dictionary is designed to accompany the work of Melzian (1937) for the benefit of scholars concerned with the place and function of the Nigerian Bini language in the structure of West African languages. The conventional orthography has been used, except in three cases. The body of the general word list contains the English meaning, the…

The use of computers makes possible analysis of the vast amount of data available in recent dialect dictionaries and surveys and in the ancient Chinese rhyme books, such as "Guang yun" and "Ji yun." Comparison of dialects can enable a historical study of Chinese, a major language group outside the Indo-European area, to offer…

The aim of this study is to identify and describe the tones of North Vietnamese in the context of single words and one frame sentence. One North Vietnamese male served for seven hours as the informant, the stimulus material being verbal items, illustrations and word lists in both English and Vietnamese. The description of each of the six tones…

This document provides a description of the Foochow dialect of Chinese. Introductory remarks concern the geographical area of the dialect and previous analysis. The phonological description includes statements on syllable structure, initial consonants, finals, tones, changed tones, combinations of initials, finals, and tones, and syllables in…

This document provides a description of the Tai-shan dialect of Chinese. Maps illustrate the area where the dialect is spoken, and introductory remarks concern previous study of the dialect, sources of current information, and relationship to other dialects. The phonological description provides information on syllable structure, initials, finals,…

Analyzes the speech of three speakers of Linxian Chinese, indicating the dialect's features and the problems involved in communication between speakers of Linxian and speakers of Putonghua (or Standard Mandarin). (Author/AM)

A dialect survey of the Penghu Islands concluded that the Penghu dialects belong to the Southern Min; variation within the dialects is considerable in terms of changed tones, certain finals, and some lexical items; and the Penghu dialects can be further divided into two large groups. (Author/CB)

Investigation of native Chinese speakers' acquisition of French suprasegmental features found that the subjects not only perceived the different directions of pitch but also placed them in the right categories, in spite of the differences between the use of pitch in tonal and intonational languages. (34 references) (CB)

Results of a longitudinal case study of a monolingual Sesotho-speaking boy show that rule-assigned tone on subject markers is marked appropriately by age two. Underlying tonal representations on verb roots are learned gradually over time, showing an early Default High tone pattern. (Contains 51 references.) (Author)

Examines the success of phonemic tone-marking for Dschang, a Grassfields Bantu language that uses tone to distinguish lexical items and some grammatical constructions. Participants from a variety of different age groups and educational backgrounds, and having different levels of exposure to the orthography, were tested on location in the Western…