Lexical Tone

Abstract

This chapter surveys issues related to the production of tone in the world’s languages. Here the term ‘tone’ refers to the localised (within-syllable) use of fundamental frequency that contrasts lexical meanings (thus excluding pitch accent and stress languages). A comprehensive review of tonal phonetics is presented covering the acoustic correlates of tone, contextual tonal variation, methods used in tone production research, as well as recent research topics in tonal phonetics. We offer suggestions for teaching and learning of tone as a phonetics topic and the chapter concludes with suggestions for future directions for tone production research.