Vietnamese Tone

In linguistic study, tone is usually equated with pitch. Andrea Pham argues that this view of tone is problematic. Her acoustic analysis of tone in Vietnamese uses data from various speakers to show that the phonation features of breathiness and creakiness correlate much more closely with tonal perceptions than pitch height alone. This finding resolves what has long been regarded as a serious contradiction between the phonetics of certain Vietnamese tones and their phonological status. This new book offers research that will affect further study of tone in Vietnamese and other tonal languages.