Tone Sandhi

Tone sandhi is a feature of tonal languages in which the tones assigned to individual words vary based on the pronunciation of the words that surround them in a phrase or sentence. It is a type of sandhi, or fusional change, from the Sanskrit word for "joining".

Read more about Tone Sandhi:  Languages With Tone Sandhi, What Is and Is Not Tone Sandhi, Mandarin Chinese

Famous quotes containing the word tone:

    There was about all the Romans a heroic tone peculiar to ancient life. Their virtues were great and noble, and these virtues made them great and noble. They possessed a natural majesty that was not put on and taken off at pleasure, as was that of certain eastern monarchs when they put on or took off their garments of Tyrian dye. It is hoped that this is not wholly lost from the world, although the sense of earthly vanity inculcated by Christianity may have swallowed it up in humility.
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)