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Theoretical phonologists have devoted more attention to African tone languages than to East Asian ones, probably because phonologists thrive on alternations, and the morphological characteristics of East Asian languages make alternations (segmental or tonal) relatively rare. Given this, one might ask what we can learn about tone from East Asian languages that we cannot learn from African languages. One striking observation about East Asian languages is the richness of their tonal inventory. Where African languages typically contrast two, perhaps three level tones (see chap. 12, this volume), East Asian languages, particularly Chinese languages, frequently contrast four levels and several rising or falling (i.e., contour) tones. They are thus fertile territory for exploring the distinctive features of tone - what they are, how they realte to segmental features, and how they are organized in the feature geometry. The first and longest section of this chapter is devoted to this question. A second way in which East Asian languages may be helpful is in illuminating our understanding of what may be the tone-bearing unit (TBU) in language. Some Chinese languages appear to use the mora, so that only long syllables may bear two tones, which surface as contours. However, I will adopt the view that the lack of contour tones on short syllables is a phonetic effect, and any syllable may phonologically ... log in or subscribe to read full text