The fully revised edition of San Duanmu's popular introduction to Chinese phonology reflects recent research and theoretical advances in particular work in feature, syllable, and stress. The author has also added a chapter on rhythm in poetry.

The fully revised edition of San Duanmu's popular introduction to Chinese phonology reflects recent research and theoretical advances in particular work in feature, syllable, and stress. The author has also added a chapter on rhythm in poetry.

This book looks at the range of possible syllables in human languages. The syllable is a central notion in phonology but basic questions about it remain poorly understood and phonologists are divided on even the most elementary issues. For example, the word city has been syllabified as ci-ty (the 'maximal onset' analysis), cit-y (the 'no-open-lax-V' analysis), and cit-ty (the 'geminate C' analysis).
San Duanmu explores and clarifies these and many other related issues through an in-depth analysis of entire lexicons of several languages. Some languages, such as Standard and Shanghai...

This book outlines a system of phonological features that is minimally sufficient to distinguish all consonants and vowels in the languages of the world. The extensive evidence is drawn from datasets with a combined total of about 1000 sound inventories.

The interpretation of phonetic transcriptions from different languages is a long-standing problem. In this book, San Duanmu proposes a solution that relies on the notion of contrast: X and Y are different sounds if and only if they contrast in some language. He focuses on a simple procedure to interpret empirical data: for each phonetic...

This book outlines a system of phonological features that is minimally sufficient to distinguish all consonants and vowels in the languages of the world. San Duanmu focuses on a straightforward procedure to interpret empirical data and reveals a surprisingly simple feature system whereby a two-way contrast for each feature proves sufficient.